We really are being spoilt at the moment with high-quality TV comedy. The BBC has This Time with Alan Partridge and Fleabag currently airing, Channel 4 has Derry Girls and Home, and now Timewasters is back on ITV2. The...
2018: The disappointments and the downright awful!
Before I publish the Best of 2018 which celebrates the little gems of the year that we'll remember with nothing but fondness, I wanted to take a look at how bad this year has been. This list isn't an excuse for me to lay into the shows I hated, it's more a look at the...
Matt on the Box: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Disappearance, Versailles, Love Island and Britain’s Got Talent
Welcome to a look at another group of very different TV shows that all played out on our tellyboxes over the last seven days. After three very good instalments of the latest series of The Hollow Crown you would think that the BBC would hold off on the Shakespeare...
All the US shows to feel the axe!
As the US networks set out their new schedules some shows have bitten the dust. Below is a list of shows we know to have been axed or ended. A Agent Carter (FX in the UK) American Idol *Aired its final season this year.* (FiveUS/VIVA in the UK) Angel from Hell...
Ellen finds a UK home
The hugely popular US talk show The Ellen DeGeneres Show is joining ITV2 in 2016 and will kick start the year airing brand new episodes on the channel from Monday 18th January. Hosted by comedian/actress Ellen DeGeneres the daily talk show features a combination of...
Matt on the Box: Unforgotten, From Darkness, Together, The Job Lot, Chewing Gum and This is England ’90
It's another week and there's a lot of TV to talk about so let's get started. It's fair to say that ITV haven't a great year so far in terms of drama with highlights being short on the ground. Even series that had promising starts, such as Black Work, fizzled out and...
Matt on the Box: TFI Friday, The Tribe, Running the Shop, Stonemouth and Love Island
Hi folks, after a couple of weeks off it's time to get back into the swing of things as Matt on the Box returns to take a look at the highlights of the last week or so in TV. Possibly the most talked about programme of last week came in the form of the one-off return...
Family Guy to move to ITV2
ITV is to become the free-to-air home of all new series of the hugely popular Seth MacFarlane comedy Family Guy, ITV and Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution announced today. Beginning this autumn, all new series of Family Guy will have their UK premiere...
ITV2 recommissions The Job Lot
ITV2 have announced that they have recommissioned popular sitcom The Job Lot for a third series. Originally starting on ITV, Clare Downes, Stuart Lane and Ian Jarvis' job centre comedy moved to ITV2 last year. Filming is set to commence in March whilst stars...
Matt on the Box: The Voice UK, Stars in Their Eyes, Suspects, Cyberbully and Cockroaches
Welcome back to another chair-spinning, semi-improvised and real time look back at the last seven days in TV. We start with the aforementioned chair spinning as The Voice UK returns for its fourth series. The biggest change to this series has to be the inclusion of a...
Matt on the Box: Downton Abbey, Marvellous, Plebs and The Job Lot
Welcome back to a round-up of some of the shows I've caught over the past week or so. We kick off with a dramatic behemoth which has been one of Britain's most popular exports over the past few years. Like it or loathe it, Downton Abbey is a big ratings winner for ITV...
ITV2 Commissions new sitcom Cockroaches
ITV2 has commissioned Cockroaches, a new six part post-apocalyptic-romantic-comedy written and created by Bad Education's Fredy Syborn. Daniel Lawrence Taylor and Esther Smith play Tom and Suze, two nineteen-year-olds both dreaming of the future. When nuclear...
Matt on the Box: This Week’s TV Highlights: George Gently, DCI Banks, Inside No. 9 and The Big Reunion
With the weather outside becoming increasingly volatile you would think that the TV would provide some sort of comfort and escape from the storms outside. Unfortunately, two new dramas this week appear to want to focus on the melancholic aspects of life rather than...
Calum, Fran and Dangerous Danan, ITV2
Did we like it? No. This roadtrip along Route 66 was one of the most boring hours of TV we've ever experienced. Balding, banal Best, bullshitting, banal Cosgrave and bedridden, banal Danan lack any charm. What was good about it? • The thinly disguised hatred Calum and...
Hell’s Kitchen USA, ITV2,
What to say if you liked it Go gettam, Gordon. Ranting Ramsay removes the smug smiles off the faces of stunned American wannabes who want to win themselves a restaurant. What to say if you disliked it What sort of society is this that makes stars out of people just...
Junior Eurovision: UK Final, ITV2
What to say if you liked it Kids singing songs they've written sounds like hell, but this wasn't. Five of the eight compositions matched anything that gets into the Top 40 these days. What to say if you disliked it People getting overexcited about a contest with as...