An HBO docuseries follows the story of a white man who killed his wife but blamed a Black man, and the reckoning that follows“My wife’s been shot. I’ve been shot.”On 23 October 1989 Charles “Chuck” Stuart, who was white, called 911 to report that he an…
An HBO docuseries follows the story of a white man who killed his wife but blamed a Black man, and the reckoning that follows
“My wife’s been shot. I’ve been shot.”
On 23 October 1989 Charles “Chuck” Stuart, who was white, called 911 to report that he and his pregnant wife, Carol, had been carjacked and shot by a Black man in Boston’s Mission Hill neighbourhood. Carol died that night. Their baby died days after being born. Stuart survived and garnered nationwide sympathy.
Continue reading...From channelling When Harry Met Sally to getting Aisling Bea to put in a stunning performance, this comedy is an utter joy. Its stars talk apps, kids and This Morning-based banterThe romcom is as indestructible as a cockroach: a thousand reports of its…
From channelling When Harry Met Sally to getting Aisling Bea to put in a stunning performance, this comedy is an utter joy. Its stars talk apps, kids and This Morning-based banter
The romcom is as indestructible as a cockroach: a thousand reports of its impending demise have been matched by a thousand reports of its sudden resurgence. At this stage, it’s safe to say the genre will outlive us all. That’s partly because the romantic comedy is powered by a problem that will never be resolved: the glorious headache that is falling in love.
Smothered, the riotous new show from bestselling author and Schitt’s Creek writer Monica Heisey, takes this eternal affliction and tangles it up with a very modern complication.
Continue reading...From channelling When Harry Met Sally to getting Aisling Bea to put in a stunning performance, this comedy is an utter joy. Its stars talk apps, kids and This Morning-based banterThe romcom is as indestructible as a cockroach: a thousand reports of its…
From channelling When Harry Met Sally to getting Aisling Bea to put in a stunning performance, this comedy is an utter joy. Its stars talk apps, kids and This Morning-based banter
The romcom is as indestructible as a cockroach: a thousand reports of its impending demise have been matched by a thousand reports of its sudden resurgence. At this stage, it’s safe to say the genre will outlive us all. That’s partly because the romantic comedy is powered by a problem that will never be resolved: the glorious headache that is falling in love.
Smothered, the riotous new show from bestselling author and Schitt’s Creek writer Monica Heisey, takes this eternal affliction and tangles it up with a very modern complication.
Continue reading...This unforgettable history of the Troubles is the documentary series of the year. The astonishing, soul-baring interviews are both a warning call and a beacon of hope• More 2023 in TV• More on the best culture of 2023How does a country descend into civ…
This unforgettable history of the Troubles is the documentary series of the year. The astonishing, soul-baring interviews are both a warning call and a beacon of hope
• More 2023 in TV
• More on the best culture of 2023
How does a country descend into civil war? It’s easier than you may think. At various points between 1969 and 1998, it nearly happened in Britain. There have been many TV tellings of the Troubles: good ones too, offering political and historical analysis of the seemingly intractable sectarian conflict that scarred late 20th-century Northern Ireland. James Bluemel’s remarkable five-part series was the first to present an emotional history; a trajectory of events that can be understood via the feelings of the people involved. This was the most important TV series of the year: a road map of how conflict begins and, crucially, how it can end. Parts of it will lodge in your brain like shrapnel.
Through Bluemel’s gentle but persistent probing, the process of radicalisation was laid out with horrible clarity. We began with footage of mid-60s Northern Ireland: people having fun at holiday camps; shopping, sporting recognisable, era-specific haircuts and fashions. The rioting that arose in Catholic communities out of a series of marches in protest at Northern Ireland’s unfair voting system, was viewed simply as “a good craic” by some participants.
Continue reading...In this week’s newsletter: Rob Delaney and Alice Levine investigate the end of the cabinet minister’s career in the latest series of British Scandal• Don’t get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereGoonedWidely available, episodes weeklyThis s…
In this week’s newsletter: Rob Delaney and Alice Levine investigate the end of the cabinet minister’s career in the latest series of British Scandal
• Don’t get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up here
Gooned
Widely available, episodes weekly
This shocking series, presented by Emma Lehman, profiles the “troubled teen industry”, which convinces US parents to let them help their children with behavioural issues, only to horrifically mistreat them. Staff, survivors, families and activists explain how what are often sold as “woodland retreats” can involve sleep and water deprivation, and being locked in padded rooms. Horrendous revelations from a manipulative industry. Alexi Duggins
In this week’s newsletter: Rob Delaney and Alice Levine investigate the end of the cabinet minister’s career in the latest series of British Scandal• Don’t get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereGoonedWidely available, episodes weeklyThis s…
In this week’s newsletter: Rob Delaney and Alice Levine investigate the end of the cabinet minister’s career in the latest series of British Scandal
• Don’t get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up here
Gooned
Widely available, episodes weekly
This shocking series, presented by Emma Lehman, profiles the “troubled teen industry”, which convinces US parents to let them help their children with behavioural issues, only to horrifically mistreat them. Staff, survivors, families and activists explain how what are often sold as “woodland retreats” can involve sleep and water deprivation, and being locked in padded rooms. Horrendous revelations from a manipulative industry. Alexi Duggins
The casting is pitch-perfect, the demands on contestants are formidable and there’s an unbelievable amount of prize money on offer. What’s not to love?My first instinct was to avoid the TV show Squid Game: The Challenge, for highly pleasing reasons of …
The casting is pitch-perfect, the demands on contestants are formidable and there’s an unbelievable amount of prize money on offer. What’s not to love?
My first instinct was to avoid the TV show Squid Game: The Challenge, for highly pleasing reasons of self-righteous disdain. The original Squid Game, a nine-episode drama created by Hwang Dong-hyuk that launched on Netflix in 2021, became a sensation for its inventive brutality, heart-stopping drama and what must be referred to at all times as its searing indictment of capitalism.
Turning a show in which contestants are murdered if they lose a game into an actual reality show (minus the murder) is a bit like reviving the world of They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, in which a bunch of food insecure people are invited to wear themselves out for our viewing pleasure. No, thank you!
Emma Brocke is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...Schitt’s Creek writer Monica Heisey’s new, offbeat romance series. Plus: pregnant pets in care in Fur Babies. Here’s what to watch this evening Continue reading…
Schitt’s Creek writer Monica Heisey’s new, offbeat romance series. Plus: pregnant pets in care in Fur Babies. Here’s what to watch this evening
Continue reading...The paper-thin script on this mystery drama about a suspicious death makes for a very long watch. It’s a shame, seeing as it features stars like Top Boy’s Jasmine Jobson and Phil DavisWe need a word for a thriller that isn’t very thrilling. A thrillish…
The paper-thin script on this mystery drama about a suspicious death makes for a very long watch. It’s a shame, seeing as it features stars like Top Boy’s Jasmine Jobson and Phil Davis
We need a word for a thriller that isn’t very thrilling. A thrillish? A thrill-err? Platform 7, a four-part adaptation of Louise Doughty’s 2019 bestseller of the same name, is one of them.
I should say that there is an unavoidable spoiler ahead, although I hope it is not too great as the official reveal comes early on in the first episode and, unofficially, even earlier for viewers who have watched television before.
Continue reading...The death of the groundbreaking writer and producer leaves behind a string of incisive and progressive sitcoms as well as a profoundly altered TV landscapeNorman Lear, celebrated US TV writer and producer, dies aged 101The canon of English letters has …
The death of the groundbreaking writer and producer leaves behind a string of incisive and progressive sitcoms as well as a profoundly altered TV landscape
Norman Lear, celebrated US TV writer and producer, dies aged 101
The canon of English letters has Shakespeare, Russian literature has Pushkin and American television has Norman Lear. No single figure has exerted a greater influence over the evolution of the sitcom in particular, but also the medium in general – the visual vocabulary for live-studio-audience cinematography, the rhythms of writing for the 21-minute format and especially the political conscience guiding the country’s preeminent populist art form through some turbulent decades. And yet with Lear now sadly departed at the dumbfounding age of 101, surveying the expansive scope of his small-screen achievements feels like reductive and incomplete portraiture. A decorated soldier, a crusading advocate for the arts and a stalwart advocate for progressivism, he was more than a writer, producer or director. He was a great statesman, his lifelong work on and off our TV sets inextricable from an overarching project to build and improve the US.
As a Jew growing up in the intermission between the world wars, ideological consciousness was a birthright foisted upon him from his youngest years; he traces his radicalization to age nine, when he stumbled upon an antisemitic radio broadcast from Father Charles Coughlin that rang in his ears once the time came to enlist. His tenure as an Army Air Corps gunner and radio operator in the Mediterranean and European theaters instilled in him a tireless work ethic, though as was the case for many men his age, it also left him without a clear path post-peace. Lear cut his teeth in public relations and door-to-door sales of home furnishings and family photos before catching a break in jokecraft through his cousin’s husband. He and Ed Simmons established themselves as dependable sketch-men with regular gigs on the Colgate Comedy Hour variety program, where they helped turn duo Martin and Lewis into a national sensation.
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