All articles by Stephen Price – Page 77
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RatingsA Royal Variety Performance
When I think of variety, I always remember those multi packs of mini cereals that lurked enticingly in the larder of my youth.
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RatingsStripping pays off for BBC2
BBC2 was like Gypsy Rose Lee this week, with all its stripping success.
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RatingsViewers flock to taboo TV
Congressman Brody’s taboos in Homeland are pretty dark, what with his central role in international terrorism aided by some barking plot wrangling – and oh, for goodness sake, just put those two ridiculous kids in jail and be done with it.
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RatingsE4 top with a bigger Bang
For one last hurrah, Ms Lund’s pullies are back with some Danish murdering. Meanwhile, one of the biggest shows in the US displayed its credentials here, while in this era of ‘Big History’, there’s more about where on earth we all came from.
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RatingsJungle Rescue for ITV
I’m A Celeb puts the broadcaster back on top as BBC1’s Children In Need fails to match up to last year
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RatingsNot the end of the world
If you recorded the Apocalypse, what would standing at the office watercooler the next day be like? Paper cups full of cockroaches probably, and no one to spoil the ending.
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RatingsBBC4 enjoys the sweet life
It’s a bit like having your birthday party down the road and then not going.
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RatingsBig egg takes some beating
Peering at a Salvador Dali painting in an art gallery one day, I felt the heat of embarrassment blush my cheeks as my tummy rumbled like a howling beast, much to the hushed cognoscenti’s irritation.
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RatingsStrictly Gives BBC a lift
In a weekend the broadcaster would rather forget, dance show beats all bar ITV1’s I’m A Celeb One afternoon in a quiet week in broadcasting, I strolled past one of my local cinemas.
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RatingsDownton finishes on top
Drama series finale tops table for ITV1, while BBC1’s Strictly pulls in 2 million more than X Factor
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RatingsCBBC conjures up slot winner
It’s not Harry Potter battling the alien bursting out of John Hurt’s stomach, but CBBC’s tale of aliens and wizards began nicely.
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RatingsBeware the grizzly bear
One of the most chanted refrains emanating from the US elections was the Obama camp’s “four more years”. In the even more ruthless world of American TV, it’s often a more plaintive “four more episodes”.
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Ratings007 puts BBC2 in driving seat
BBC2 celebrated the understated launch of a new Bond film with a Top Gear special in an appropriately stunty schedule in which it also stripped icebergs and autumn. While smarting at the fate of the Jewish mum competition, Channel 4 can take comfort from the redoubtable Grand Designs.
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RatingsFall brings US dramas
In the US, the fall TV season is under way and the business of wondering what will survive is on. Some of those new dramas launched here this week, from sci-fi to a US take on Sherlock Holmes.
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RatingsX Factor loses out to Strictly
New Tricks goes down a treat and Savile’s toxic legacy proves popular for Panorama.
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RatingsChoir ends on a high note
As the weather around the world goes nuts with alarming regularity it didn’t help that this week Derren Brown convinced some poor sap the world was ending; forget the aid of skilful suggestion, just watching the news makes it feel like it actually might happen.
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FeaturesBake Off beats critics
Alas and alack the cakes, buns, bunting and icing sugar are but a memory. Alas and alack for BBC2 anyway, for everyone else the end of The Great British Bake Off might evoke a more bitter ‘thank goodness, get lost’.
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RatingsPop bios feel the Squeeze
Squeeze, those melancholy minstrels, were indubitably marvellous, if in a more niche kind of way than, say, ELO.
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RatingsDownton on an upper
Downton Abbey continues to prove that the UK’s appetite for costume melodrama remains unabated, as the latest consolidated episode, which aired on 7 October, is again at the top of the table.
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RatingsGB baking rises again
One far-flung summer past I worked for the Severn Trent Water Authority researching the history of its sewerage system.