Back in May, the Writers' Guild of America went out on strike. Paralysing the TV and film industry and closing down productions across the world. It was a long time coming. The TV landscape has changed beyond recognition since the last strike in 2007, with the...
This Friday The Power of Parker is the latest BBC sitcom out of the stalls when it arrives on BBC One and iPlayer. Created and written by half the creative team behind the massively successful Peter Kay’s Car Share, Paul Coleman and Sian Gibson (who also stars) have...
With TV slowing over the summer, it's time to look back at the best shows of the year to this point and perhaps give you the chance to catch up with some of the gems you may have missed. Happy Valley January 2023, BBC One - I'll admit to being equal parts excited and...
The sixth season of Black Mirror is just around the corner and with it will come a brand new batch of dystopian sci-fi for fans to sink their teeth into. In anticipation, I’ve created my own personal top 5 list of Black Mirror episodes, to explore the traits that...
When Sarah Lancashire recently won her much-deserved Royal Television Award, she brought up an incident she’d experienced on Christmas Eve in a supermarket. “I bet you think what you do isn’t important,” an old lady had said to her, before explaining that on Christmas...
Towards the end of the fourth episode of Unforgotten's fifth series, police colleagues Sunny Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar) and Jessica James (Sinéad Keenan), shut themselves away in an interview room, sit opposite one another, and have a long overdue conversation. Sunny is...
I love The Good Wife. That’s not exactly a cool position to take. Despite having positive reviews throughout its run, it’s rarely mentioned alongside the more prestigious TV dramas. It doesn’t have that zeitgeisty status assigned to something like Breaking Bad (well,...
When Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash called time on The Royle Family following the Christmas Special in 2000 I was desperate to see what the pair would do next. Caroline would move to Australia and create the short-lived Dossa and Joe and Craig Cash would team with...
In 1996, my husband Mark – then seventeen – was meeting his mates in his local pub with a landlord who was willing to turn a blind eye. At the same time, I – a year younger and 146 miles away in another town – was probably pouring over a numeracy textbook in a...
Another year is upon us and 2023 is already packed with exciting and noteworthy new and retuning shows that we can't wait to see. The Last of Us Monday 16th January Sky Atlantic - It's quite possible that one of the first BIG dramas might be one of the year's best....
As we say goodbye to 2022, we thought we'd pay tribute to the best shows of the year by publishing all of our team's Top 10 shows of the year that was then combined for our ultimate list of the year. Have a read and tell us who you agree with. Amy Beth @chandelierbing...
When it came time to compile our Best of the Year piece two things struck me. The first was that wasn't one BIG show that resonated with people in the same way Normal People and I May Destroy You did in 2020 or It's a Sin and Mare of Easttown last year. The second was...
This year the BBC turns 100. Fundamental to Britain and funded by licence fee payers, the BBC has garnered a worldwide reputation for quality. For this special post highlighting the highlights of the corporation's massive contribution to television, I've decided to...
Shockingly, I only watched Sally Wainwright’s Happy Valley for the first time earlier this year. As incredibly late to the party I was, I’m glad I amended this, as the BBC crime drama encapsulates everything I love about television. As it returns to our screens later...
After a summer of sport, TV is getting its act together this autumn. Yes, the World Cup will disrupt things in November but the streamers have plenty to keep us non-footie fans occupied. Here are the shows we're looking forward to over the next few months. Minx...
I'm not the biggest fan of Netflix. It's a confused brand that offers so much to every possible viewer, that it's impossible to tell quite who they're catering for. One thing they do that I'll always be grateful for is whenever a new drama, documentary, comedy or...
In the spring of 2017, I had the rare luxury of a night to myself. I was channel hopping when I came across what looked like the climax of an action sequence on Channel 4. An aerial shot of a car skidding through a snowy landscape, sirens blaring close behind, was...
When Paul Abbott's Clocking Off debuted in January of 2000 the TV landscape looked entirely different. Abbott, who has since gone to success with his semi-autobiographical comedy-drama Shameless and his police drama No Offence, had been working in television for a...
A pair of trousers fly through the air, landing on a dusty road which an RV speeds through with panicked abandon. So begins a series that was pitched by its creator as ‘Mr Chips becomes Scarface'. Television series can naturally morph and change as they...
“You see that guy in the hat?” “The tall one?” “The one in the hat!” Does anyone actually listen to their friends’ recommendations anymore? It’s a counter-intuitive phenomenon, but the more someone goes on about the latest must-see thing on TV, the less likely I am to...
It was the show’s mastery of character that made it great. 20 years ago this month, HBO aired the first episode of The Wire. Nine months earlier, 9/11 had dramatically snatched federal law enforcement’s attention and budget away from the war on drugs and towards the...
“Pain or damage don’t end the world. Or despair, or f***ing beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you’ve got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man… and give some back” This could well be the mission statement for Deadwood, David Milch’s...
Like everyone else, including James Gandolfini’s own son, Michael, in preparation for his role in the prequel movie The Many Saints of Newark (as cited during his interview with Simon Mayo for Kermode and Mayo’s Film Review) I used lockdown to start watching The...
Co-written by site Editor Luke Knowles and Site Contributor Amy Beth. *Contains spoilers for season one of Severance* “You know, my mother was an atheist. She used to say that there was good news and bad news about hell. The good news is hell is just a product of the...