Archive for the ‘Documentary’ Category
Monday, June 29th, 2009
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The week before last I posted up the list of celebrities taking part in this year’s Who Do You Think You Are? Call me quite sad and dull if you will but I actually look forward to this announcement every year, because I think WDYTYA? is quite an important show. It serves a dual purpose – it has the drama of a personal detective story, as well as massive chunks of ‘living history’, stuff that’s really interesting and what people can still identify with. Anyway, I’m wittering. More WDYTYA? news today… Davina McCall will be the first sleb in the spotlight. Read on for more…
Our WDYTYA? section.
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Posted in TV News, Who Do You Think You Are? | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
Sending celebrities to be Famous, Rich and Homeless (BBC Two, Wednesday, 24 June, 9pm) was always going to send out mixed messages. On one hand, you’ve got an almost honourable line of wanting to highlight the plight of Britain’s homeless by drawing people in with the use of slebs… yet by the same token, it seems a bit trite to get someone to play at being homeless for a while before returning to luxury. It was these two feelings that coursed through me as I watched the show, as the celebrities showed raw emotion and empathy, along with occasional smuggery and shrugging.
Related: Famous, Rich and Homeless preview
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Tags: Annabel Croft and James, bbc one, Bruce Jones, Documentary, Famous, Hardeep Singh Kohli, Les Battersby, Marquess of Blandford, review, Rich and Homeless, Rosie Boycott, tv blog, tv review
Posted in Documentary, TV Reviews | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
After the triumph of the Poetry Season, it seems the Beeb have done it again – the first few programmes in the Moon Season have been absolutely fascinating. But where James May on the Moon was something of a personal, emotional journey, this is much more straight – but no less interesting.
Related: Review – James May On The Moon
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Posted in Documentary | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
“Rape is the only crime in which the victim becomes the accused…”
Sexual assault is, to my mind, the worst crime of them all. The idea of being murdered is preferable to the initial assault, then slow torturous anguish and violation that pervades in the fall-out. It’s not just a physical assault, it’s an attack so personal that it strikes straight through the heart and carves a permanent scar on memory and basic function. In women especially, it robs them of their very essence and can take away the thing that makes them unique and wonderful, turning it into a painful, devastating reminder. Such events can stop a woman from feeling female, which is one of the greatest crimes of all. So, tuning in to Dispatches: Rape in the City (Channel 4, Monday, 22 June, 8pm), we were to face up to this grim aspect of human behaviour and look at sexual assault in Britain and how, depressingly, a large number of these attacks come from the black British community.
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Tags: Channel 4, Dispatches: Rape in the City, Documentary, tv blog, tv review
Posted in Documentary, TV Reviews | No Comments »
Monday, June 22nd, 2009
There’s not many shows like Top Gear (BBC Two, Sunday, 21 June, 8pm) in terms of polarising opinion. In one corner, you’ve got people who just like the fun of it. Racing cars, taking the piss out of things… the whole feeling of listening in to a bunch of mates having a laugh down the pub. Elsewhere though, you’ve got those who hate the whole zoo format. The self-aware casual xenophobia and sexism and… all that junk. Both are generalisations and both can be equally true. Sometimes, Top Gear is the best thing on telly… sometimes it’s worse than listening to Steve Wright In The Afternoon. Last night, it got it pretty wrong… and that’s including the ‘reveal’ of The Stig.
Related: Our Top Gear section
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Tags: BBC Two, james may, michael schumacher, richard hammond, stig revealed, Top Gear, tv blog, tv review
Posted in Top Gear, TV Reviews | 8 Comments »
Monday, June 22nd, 2009
With the 40 year anniversary of the first moon landings coming up fast, I’m sure there won’t be much getting away from that historic day in mid July, 1969 over the next few weeks. The countdown starts with the BBC’s Moon Season, and this first documentary in which James May explores what it takes to walk on unearthly ground…
Related: Coming Soon… The Moon Season
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Posted in Documentary, TV Reviews | 1 Comment »
Friday, June 19th, 2009
Hot on the heels of the rather triumphant Poetry Season comes another group of programmes from the BBC intended to enlighten and entertain (that’s what they do, y’know). This time we’re looking at the moon – well, looking at and finding out about, probably – which is always a brilliant subject. In space, but just in reach, it has fascinated us for millennia, and the moon landings in ’69 will, I reckon, be one of those moments in the history of man that is never forgotten, no matter how much further we get.
Related: Coming Soon – The BBC’s Moon Season | James May’s Big Ideas
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Posted in Documentary, Set the Vid | No Comments »
Thursday, June 18th, 2009
Ok, who forget to tell me about this? A documentary on comedy songs? Do you not know me at all?! What do you mean I should know about these things? Oh… yes.. that’s right. Oh dear. Basically, I love a comedy song – a much maligned genre that in fact takes a hell of lot of talent to get right – but could it really offer enough interesting material to fill a marathon ninety minute documentary?
Related: Our lovely comedy section | Our equally lovely documentary section
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Posted in Comedy, Documentary, TV Reviews | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009
Okay. We normally give you a couple of days notice on good shows that are coming up, but this one is too good to be forgotten about. Basically, if you don’t mind staying up late tonight, or indeed, want to record something really cool, you really need to catch Tears, Tiaras and Transsexuals (Channel 4, Wednesday, 17 June, 11.10pm) tonight. I’ve watched this before on More4 and I can’t think of many other shows that I’ve enjoyed watching as much as this! The documentary follows the first ever World’s Most Beautiful Transsexual Pageant which was held in, where else, Las Vegas.
Related: My review of Tears, Tiaras and Transsexuals
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Tags: Channel 4, Documentary, preview, review, Set The Video, tears, Tiaras and Transsexuals, tv blog
Posted in Documentary, Set the Vid | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009
I’m not sure but the last series of Who Do You Think You Are? didn’t rate as highly as series before, despite featuring some terrific and moving family stories from the likes of Ainsley Harriott (first time I’ve watched an hour of him the telly without wanting to throw myself out of the window) and Rock Stein. There was also Fiona Bruce, Rory Bremner and Kevin Whately, so they had some proper TV personalities in there. Maybe the show has lost its lustre, so it’s not surprising the next series has pulled out some big names. Read on for more…
Our WDYTYA? section
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Posted in Who Do You Think You Are? | No Comments »
Monday, June 15th, 2009
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (or, the Pre-Raphaelites) were a bunch of painters and writers from England. They got together and decided that they needed to reform art. They believed that everyone else was simply doing it wrong. Well wrong. So wrong that they were corrupting everyone else. The most famous paintings in this field subsequently ended up on middle-class student’s bedroom walls. Athletic women with big square jaws and women floating in water looking dead gazed down on scruffy beds with nine throws on, staving off the dread of the encroaching damp spots and mouldy windowsills. And so, ex-art students… or indeed, anyone with an interest in High Brow Stuff, this week gives us all the chance to learn about The Pre-Raphaelites (BBC Four, Wednesday, 17 June, 8pm) in the first of three shows, sub-dubbed, Victorian Revolutionaries.
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Tags: art, BBC Four, Documentary, preview, Set The Video, The Pre-Raphaelites, tv blog
Posted in Documentary, Set the Vid | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, June 10th, 2009
I was just settling down to the inevitable rout that is tonight’s football match, pondering what gem of a post to add to this newly-commentable site, when I remembered a little conversation I had on Twitter last night with Tony Gardner – he of Lead Balloon and the brilliant My Parents Are Aliens. Well, a rather one-sided conversation, admittedly, but we were tweeting about the same thing at the same time and that’s close enough.
Related: More Springwatch Watch on TVScoop
*** Don’t agree with this post? Want to share your views? Our comments facility is back up and running… so feel free to join in the debate! ***
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Posted in Documentary | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009
The wholesome Kate Humble’s words, not mine, but I agree with the sentiment. Pensthorpe in Norfolk is looking especially lovely in the beautiful late-evening sun we’ve been treated to over the last couple of weeks, and the flora and fauna are putting on a great show for Chris, Kate, Simon and the Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen/James May hybrid.
Related: Springwatch Watch – The New Presenters
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Posted in Documentary, TV Reviews | No Comments »
Monday, June 1st, 2009
Kate Adie is harder than Superman’s nut-sack. She could have you in a fight easily. She’s been to war-torn places with the news and had bombs dropped directly onto her head and she just laughed and shot lasers out of her eyes and single-handedly brought down the tyrannical regime on her own. She only wears a bullet-proof vest to protect her clothes from getting mashed-up. She makes Chuck Norris look like a sissy. So with that, The Hardest Person In The Whole World appears once again on our screen in Kate Adie Returns to Tiananmen Square (BBC Two, Wednesday, 3 June, 9pm) which, granted, is not the catchiest of TV show titles… but I’m not telling her. She’ll batter me so badly that I’ll end up looking like a melted Caramac bar.
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Posted in Documentary, Set the Vid | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
Oooh, you just know summer’s nearly here when the French Open’s underway in Paris (go Murray), and Springwatch dominates the BBC Two schedules. But what’s this? Where’s the Goodie making inappropriately explicit remarks about the mating rituals of the dung beetle or mallard? Off having a rest, that’s where, and we’re left in the hands of regulars Kate Humble and Simon King, along with newbie (to this show at least) Mr. Chris Packham. So two episodes into Springwatch 2009, how is he getting on?
Related: Holy Chaffinch – Oddie quits Springwatch | Springwatch Watch 2008 – Could Oddie keep it clean?
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Posted in Documentary | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
Tourette’s is often misappropriated by people making very lazy jokes about potty-mouthed individuals. Tourette’s is far more than simply saying ****face, ****bag and ****ing c***. As anyone who has ever read any of Oliver Sach’s stuff will tell you, it’s a complex and strange thing that effects people in ways that veer from shouting random nonsense to huge bodily ticks. Weirder yet, some people can control it with extreme concentration, like pilots and surgeons who suffer from Tourette’s. There’s been quite a few shows that have looked into this topic, usually in a rather light-hearted way and this week, we’ve got a new one that’s no different. Tourettes: I Swear I Can’t Help It (BBC One, Thursday, 28 May, 9pm).
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Posted in Documentary, Set the Vid | No Comments »
Monday, May 25th, 2009
Well, we’re a week into the Poetry Season on BBC Two and BBC Four, and I have managed to miss every single moment of it. Oh, I’m the reason arts programming on telly is so limited, aren’t I? It’s all my fault! Thankfully, I plan to make amends this week – and with the likes of Armando Iannucci, Michael Wood and Robert Webb all involved, I’d be a fool not to…
Related: Set The Video – Why Poetry Matters | In a literary mood? Check out our sister blog Trashionista
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Posted in Documentary, Set the Vid | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009
On Tuesday 26th May, BBC One shows the exclusive story behind a scientific discovery that could revolutionise our understanding of human evolution. Cool huh? Narrated by David Attenborough, the one-off hour-long documentary, Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor: The Link, tells the story of an important scientific development that could tell us more about where we come from. You see, there’s this fossil, known as Ida, which could be an indication of one of the roots of anthropoid evolution – the point at which our primate ancestors began first developing the features that would evolve into our own.
Related: God botherers bother David Attenborough | The Incredible Journey Review
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Posted in Coming Soon..., Documentary | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009
There is one date in British history that everyone knows. Kids might not know quite why they know it, but it will ring a bell for them in any case. For the rest of us, it’s the day poor Harold got an arrow through the eye, the Normans invaded, and we started saying ‘regal’ as well as ‘kingly’ (and other such Frenchified words). A worthy subject for a dramatisation then, certainly – it’s just a shame that this one is so terribly leaden.
Related: Documentaries on TV Scoop
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Posted in Documentary, TV Reviews | No Comments »
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