Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Ian McDiarmid, Nicholas Farrell, Kenneth Cranham, Nicholas Asbury, Mark Lewis Jones, Rainer Sellien, François-Eric Gendron, Bill Paterson, Tim Pigott-Smith, Kate Ambler, Sinéad Cusack, André Kaczmarczyk, Holger Kunkel, James McArdle, Ludger Pistor, Urs Remond, Bernhard Schütz, Stephan Szasz, Niall Cusack, Gordon Fulton, George Lenz, Mary Moulds, Chris Reilly, Rainer Reiners, Patrick Fitzsymons, Ian Beattie, Simon Coury.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Cast: Brit Marling, James Nesbitt, James Robinson, Paterson Joseph, Adam Deacon, Jill Halfpenny, Mark Womack, Nicola Walker, Daniel Kaluuya, Nick Blood, Andrew Brooke, Deborah Rosan, Lee Nicholas Harris, Bertie Carvel, Lee Asquith-Coe, Navin Chowdhry, Ella Smith, Jaspal Badwell, Vic Waghorn, Paul Blackwell, Stuart Matthews, Stuart Martin, Jonny Sweet, Elena Hargreaves.
Despite Babylon opening with the type of shot that Channel Four were famous for when they first started out as a broadcaster, the kind of camera angle that would make the late Mary Whitehouse splutter and cough as if somebody had suggested she should drown her sorrows in a five day bender in Majorca, the pastiche of modern policing by Danny Boyle, Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain was at least a look through a polarised lens at the way the public see today’s Police Force.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Martin Shaw, Lee Ingleby, Lisa McGrillis, Robert Pugh, Ruth Gemmell, Steve Evets, Charlie Richmond, Matt Stokoe, Alan Renwick, Christopher Connel, Finn Burridge, Liam Caffry, Paul Dingwall, Michael Hodgson, Samantha Phyllis Morris, Fiona Boylan, Caroline O’Neil, Don Gallagher, Simon Hubbard, Cheryl Dixon.
It may be hard to define what makes the Inspector George Gently series such compelling television. After all, there is an abundance of police dramas constantly on the go, like a merry go round that just keeps getting fuller and faster as more channels are added and then you go and include the Nordic Noir series, the United States imports which these days are too clean, too clinical and far too science based as if they are an advertisement for a thousand microscopes rather than the actual detective, the dogged gumshoe approach.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton, Timothy West, Anne Reid, Ophelia Lovibond, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Katherine Parkinson, Tom Key, Luke Pasqualino, Anna Chancellor, Marc Wooton, Ben Willbond.
There is something quite wonderfully chilling in having Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton back on television together. Even without their League of Gentlemen co-star Mark Gatiss around, the chemistry, the pleasing abundance of visual darkness and comedy that filters through to make great and worthy programmes is enough to make you weep tears of joy as you become yet again embroiled into their latest world.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Cast Neil Dudgeon, Gwilym Lee, Fiona Dolman, Tazmin Malleson, Arabella Weir, Sharon Small, Clive Wood, Mark Elliott, Lucinda Dryzek, Tyger Drew-Honey, Hayley Mills, Matt Kennard, Catherine Bailey, Lucy Akhurst, Neil McCaul.
Too many cooks can spoil the broth, or at least, make it inedible due to the nature of the toxic substance found lurking within its fatal ingredients. For the residents of Midsomer Wyvern and especially those who work under dictatorial chef Ruth Cameron at Wyvern House, life is about to get a little hotter in the kitchen.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Julie Graham, Rachael Stirling, Hattie Morahan, Sophie Rundle, Faye Marsey, David Hounslow, Nik Blood, Edyta Budnik, Brana Bajic, Orestes Sophocleous, Ian Stuart Robertson, Rupert Holliday, Michael Wedder.
With Anna Maxwell Martin’s character having departed the confines of London to go abroad with her husband, the team is one woman short but where better to look for a replacement than the colleague the women of The Bletchley Circle saved from hanging in the previous two part story.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Tom Burke, Peter Capaldi, Howard Charles, Luke Pasqualino, Santiago Cabera, Alexandra Dowling, Ryan Cage, Mainie McCoy, Hugo Speer, Jason Flemyng, Bo Poraj, John Poston, Carl McCrystal, Lukas Vychopen, Sean Cernow, Denise Gough, Jan Holik, Ian Barritt.
Two episodes in and B.B.C.’s The Musketeers already looks to be to living up to the ultimate ideal that has promised so much over the last 100 years but has never quite been able to live up to. With the very obvious exception of the set of films starring Michael York and Oliver Reed, all that has gone before this adaptation has been lacklustre, almost afraid to live to its full potential, the taste of an éclair filled with inedible garlic could not have not have left a more sour taste in the mouth of those entranced by Alexandre Dumas’ work.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Tom Burke, Luke Pasqualino, Santiago Cabrera, Howard Charles, Peter Capaldi, Tamla Kari, Maimie McCoy, Hugo Speer, Ryan Cage, Alexandra Dowling, Will Tizard, Roger Aston-Griffith, Abigail Rice, Bo Peraj, Daniel Gosling, Dave Florez, Nicholas McGaughey, Oliver Cotton, Chris Barnes, Philip Brodie, Joe Wredden, Flip Webster, Emily Beecham, David Verrey, Alex Austin.
There doesn’t seem to have been a great action adventure in the void that is Sunday night for ages. Lots of great detective drama but no real daring, swords, and the thrill of a well written narrative interlaced with seeing some of the great heroes of literature being bought to life like never before…that is until The Musketeers.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Anna Maxwell Martin, Rachael Stirling, Julie Graham, Sophie Rundle, Hattie Morahan, Mark Dexter, Faye Marsey, Paul McGann, Tim Piggott-Smith, Simon Chandler, Richard Hun, Paul Ritter, Simon Darwen, Mabel Watson, Freddie Anness-Lorenz, Nick Blood, Joanne Adams, Victoria Alcock, James Weaver.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Amanda Abbington, Lars Mikkelsen, Louise Brealey, Mark Gatiss, Lindsay Duncan, Una Stubbs, Yasmine Akram, Rupert Graves, Andrew Scott, Jonathan Aris, Tom Brooke, Wanda Ventham, Timothy Carlton, Calvin Demba, Tim Wallers, Glen Davies, Brigid Zengeni, Matthew Welsa, Louis Oliver.
Some things are just over a little too quickly. They are still magnificent, they keep you entertained and intrigued but the sense of having to wait for a lengthy period of time for a new series just as the action has reached a boiling point, a natural high of deduction, is far too much for some to bear.