“Charming, wholesome and, like the script, faithful.” Read on for the full verdict on last night’s TV.

Agatha Christie’s Marple

Agatha Christie’s Marple, ITV1
“What [Julia McKenzie] captures wonderfully is the Marple grace, her patient, kindly tolerance of those less insightful than she is, ie everybody, and especially policemen.”
Michael Deacon, Daily Telegraph

Agatha Christie’s Marple, ITV1
“Julia McKenzie’s Marple is charming, wholesome and, like the script, faithful.”
Nancy Banks-Smith, The Guardian

Agatha Christie’s Marple, ITV1
“Exceptionally well plotted even by Christie’s standards and its precision was reflected in the director Charles Palmer’s choice of visual metaphor, the clockwork insides of a grandfather clock.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

Joanna Lumley: Catwoman, ITV1
“She’s got the perfect voice for a cat documentary: she doesn’t speak, she purrs; The programme itself was fluff, obviously.”
Michael Deacon, Daily Telegraph

Joanna Lumley: Catwoman, ITV1
“A two-part ‘investigation’ into the appeal and ‘mystery’ of cats, not quite history, not quite observational documentary and not, I would have thought, quite ITV1 either.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

Last Chance to See, BBC2
“This week, [Stephen Fry] was trying to find the manatee – an over-upholstered kind of seal that looks startlingly like Stephen Fry in a wetsuit.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

Harper’s Island, BBC3
“Essentially, it’s Agatha Christie’s “Ten Little Barbie Dolls”, as a clutch of willowy young things, and their Kens, are iced on by one. As for the killer, there are more red herrings around than in an Amsterdam fish market.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

Harper’s Island, BBC3
“An American murder mystery astutely bought by BBC3 is a rebuke in every way to Lost… By the end [of 13 episodes] we will know whodunit and why.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

9/11: Phone Calls from the Tower, Channel 4
“It was difficult to get to sleep after watching.”
Nancy Banks-Smith, The Guardian

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