Following the following

After publicly identifying the “Now, If You’ll Excuse Me, Inspector” moment in ITV’s Lewis on last week’s Telly Addict – in which arrogant Oxford academics rudely make excuses and walk away from Lewis when he’s investigating them about a murder – I have three more prime NIYEMIs on this week’s. I also return to Utopia on C4 to see how it’s getting on after the first rush of blood; give the pilot episode of Fox/Sky Atlantic’s serial killer-based thriller The Following a chance; sigh heavily at the lack of jeopardy on the otherwise well-intentioned Great Comic Relief Bake Off on BBC2; and give a preview of my promised review of Louie on Fox. And another look at the mesmerising ITV logo.

New look

This week on Telly Addict, I mainly reviewing the new ITV logo. Oh, and some actual telly programmes, including the first, heinous two-part Lewis on the “new look” ITV; the phenomenal conspiracy thriller Utopia on C4; the PG Wodehouse adaptation Blandings on BBC1; and a quick look at a couple of belated highlights from The Golden Globe Awards, shown here on FiveUSA.

I love 1973

I apologise for the late running of the plug for this week’s Telly Addict. I’ve been busy. At any rate, it’s been up all day, and within it, you will see my nice new haircut, a shirt I haven’t worn very often and some considered, erudite, witty reviews of – plus some controversially throwaway remarks about – the adorable 1973 John Betjeman documentary Metro-land, shown again last week on BBC4; the similarly locomotive Great British Railway Journeys with Michael Portillo on BBC2; the perhaps unfairly maligned Mr Selfridge on ITV1; the quite horrible World Without End on C4; and the return of Silent Witness to BBC1 for its 16th series! I’ve already found myself in a titanic struggle with a persistent man over at the Guardian website, should you have more time on your hands than sense. You’re more than welcome to discuss these shows here, in a friendlier environment. I always reply.

Twenty Twelve: TV

 

Well, I’ve certainly put the hours in this year in terms of TV. My first full calendar year of writing and recording Telly Addict every week: that’s a lot of percentage in the Sky+ tank. Because I am now duty-bound to review all the exciting new stuff – and that means stuff I wouldn’t normally watch, like Red Or Black, TOWIE and The Apprentice – I find myself watching and analysing the first episode of everything, but not always bothering to watch the second episode. There are only so many hours in the day etc.

This, if you run a finger down my final list, accounts for the fact that Secret State, which I wasn’t sure about to start with, makes the list, and The Town, which I was sure about, doesn’t. I saw the former through to the bitter end, which means something, and I found myself unable to summon up the enthusiasm to see how The Town turned out, which also means something. My enthusiasm for The Great British Bake Off was entirely sincere: I couldn’t wait for the next episode. This is how I feel about the re-runs of Friday Night Lights: can’t wait. (Although the Guardian erroneously claimed that I judged The Bake Off to be “the best TV show of 2012″, when, in fact, it was simply my favourite.)

It seems obsessive and random to put these fantastic shows in any kind of qualitative order, so I’ll leave them in the order that they occurred to me. I’m not sure whether or not I ought to apologise for the proliferation of shows on Sky Atlantic. The channel has a deal with HBO; ergo, it’s where all the best imports turn up. Sorry (There, I apologised.) Oh, and by the way, I enjoyed some of the Olympics on the BBC, and Euro 2012, on the BBC and ITV, but found Gary Lineker a bit irksome on both.

The Great British Bake Off, BBC2
Line Of Duty, BBC2
Game of Thrones, Season 2, Sky Atlantic
Boardwalk Empire, Season 3, Sky Atlantic
Hunderby, Sky Atlantic
The Fear, C4
Homefront, ITV1
Fresh Meat, Series 2, C4
Friday Night Dinner, Series 2, C4
Michael Portillo’s Great Continental Railway Journeys, BBC2
Sherlock, Series 2, BBC1
Borgen, BBC4
The Bridge, BBC4
Homeland, Seasons 1-2, c4
Twenty Twelve, Series 2, BBC2
Chatsworth, BBC2
Inside Claridge’s, BBC2
The Thick Of It, Series 4, BBC4
Eastbound and Down, Season 3, FX
The Walking Dead, Season 3, FX
American Horror Story: Asylum, FX
Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy, E4
Friday Night Lights, Seasons 1-3, Sky Atlantic
Girls, Sky Atlantic
Mid Morning Matters with Alan Partidge, Sky Atlantic
The Newsroom, Sky Atlantic
Veep, Sky Atlantic
Secret State, C4
Top of the Pops, 1977, BBC4
Man About The House, Series 3-5, ITV3
Horror Europa with Mark Gatiss, BBC4
Loving Miss Hatto, BBC1
Downton Abbey, Series 3/Christmas Special, ITV1
Mrs Biggs, ITV1
Celebrity MasterChef, BBC2
Modern Family, Season 4, Sky1
Exposure: The Other Side of Jimmy Savile, ITV1
The Bletchley Circle, ITV1

Feel free to nominate shows you loved. I fell out with Downton during Series 2, but was surprised to find myself back onboard with Series 3. I also thought that Gates, on Sky Living, came out very well, but since I was one of its writers, I am unable to trust my own judgement. We must try Sky Living’s judgement, though, and it won’t be returning for a second series.

For each a road

After the unusual step last week of trailing something – The Fear on C4 – you’ll be glad to know that I actually review this week. (We record this on a Monday afternoon and the first of four episodes aired on Monday night, running to four consecutive nights thereafter.) In the event, I’m rather surprised to say that Telly Addict seems to be going out on a limb here in praising The Fear to the rafters, as it was rubbished in many quarters. I was also a fan of the first episode of ITV1′s The Town, by playwright Mike Bartlett, also less so of A Young Doctor’s Notebook on Sky Arts 1, albeit mainly due to a disconnect between me and Russian humour, as it’s based on the semi-autobiographical short stories of Mikhail Bulgakov. Oh, and further mention of ITV3′s re-runs of Man About The House, which are an ongoing pleasure.

There’s her jumper

I’m sorry, I have a cold. Hopefully it won’t hamper your enjoyment of this week’s Telly Addict, which takes a keen interest in … Sarah Lund’s knitwear in The Killing III on Scandinavia’s BBC4, the portrayal of a fantasy BBC you could really trust in the 1957-set The Hour on BBC2; the tragic trajectory of Nadine Dorries MP on I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here! on ITV1; and a bit of prime Gyp Rosetti on Sky Altantic’s Boardwalk Empire, but don’t worry if you’re a spoiler-shy Sky refusenik and are waiting for the box set, it’s a stand-alone clip that has no bearing on the plot, other than Gyp Rosetti is in it.

Lena Dun ’Em

Well, after all those months of hype, HBO’s mumblecom Girls finally arrives on Sky Atlantic, and thus on Telly Addict, written by Lena Dunham, directed by Lena Dunham, produced by Lena Dunham, executive produced by Lena Dunham and starring Lena Dunham; another new US import, Elementary, from CBS, starts here on Sky Living, probably not watched by Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat or Sue Virtue; and, belatedly, a look at the first episode of season three of The Walking Dead, on FX here, but AMC over there: with 10.9 million viewers the most watched single cable entertainment telecast of all time, so I’m led to believe. Of course, there’s also room for a quick nibble of The Great British Bake Off Masterclass on BBC2, but though it was designed to make obsessives happy, it served only to make me sad that the actual competition is over. Let’s not be a plait about it.

Was it the Guardian that did this for you?

Second Tuesday morning Telly Addict, which means I’m catching up on last Tuesday’s Great British Bake Off Final on BBC2 (there will be spoilers – deal with it); plus Friday Night Dinner, which started again three weeks ago on C4 on the wrong night; the penultimate, Leveson-style The Thick Of It, with its excellent Guardian joke, on BBC2; and a one-off C4 documentary with a title that makes it sound less subtle and tender than it actually was, My Tattoo Addiction. (Funnily enough, the programme’s producer alerted me to it via Twitter, but if I hadn’t have liked it, I would have just quietly ignored it. You have to admire him for direct marketing.)

“H” bomb

Without any attempt at forcing the issue, Sesame Street or QI style, this week’s Telly Addict is brought to you by the letter “H”. Three dramas, each beginning with the same letter, and two of them beginning with the word “Home.” First, the return of Homeland to C4 for its make-or-break second season; second, a new one to ITV1, Homefront (which isn’t one word, but we’ll let it off as I liked it); and finally, Hunted on BBC1, the big-budget Transatlantic co-production that we previewed at the Edinburgh Television Festival. Oh, and a quick morsel of Bake Off, because it would be rude not to.

Two feet in the past

There is a period drama theme to this week’s Telly Addict. Not my doing, really, but the overworked drama departments, whose current obsession with the past might well be due to a commissioner-led preference for the “theme park with safe rides” option, as persuasively discussed by Mark Lawson in, oh yes, the Guardian the other week. We catch up with BBC4′s Room At The Top (delayed by a mere 18 months due to rights issues); BBC1′s The Paradise; and Sky Atlantic’s Boardwalk Empire, back for its third season and as vital as ever. (Unless you don’t have Sky, in which case, it will be back for its third box set in the New Year.) Also, back in the real world, nods to Doctor Who and The Great British Bake Off, specifically, Cathryn and her old-fashioned, family-friendly exclamations while under teacake pressure.