Reacher; Joe And David’s Magical Sitcom Tour; Savage Mountain

““A hundred thousand years ago there were people who stayed by the campfire and people who wandered. I’m pretty sure I’m the direct descendant of the wandering type. It’s just who I am.” So begin the latest adventures of Jack Reacher, an adaptation of Lee Child’s book Gone Tomorrow and the fourth Prime Video series of Alan Ritchson’s courageous attempts to squeeze his bulging biceps into the tightest of T-shirts. He certainly looks more the part than 5ft 7in Tom Cruise in the movies and he does an even better line in meaningful stares. We all have our guilty pleasures and this is mine. Yes, I am a Reacherholic, a lost soul drawn irresistibly to the stories of goodies, baddies and lots of biffing. Maybe it’s the heat, but this feels like the kind of unchallenging drama these sweltering times demand.”
Ben Dowell, The Times

“There’s a mid-season dip when the narrative is reset and action sequences can become repetitive. Whenever a gang of henchmen arrive, there’s only one outcome – all of them lying bleeding and broken on the floor, while Reacher walks away, nursing sore knuckles. Begging to be binged, it barrels along addictively towards a schmaltzy but satisfying finale. Don’t click on Reacher for subtlety or surprises. It verges on self-parody at times, but remains viscerally thrilling and a whole heap of fun. A fifth season – based on Child’s 20th novel, Make Me – is already in the pipeline, while spin-off drama Neagley arrives next month. At this rate, the Reacherverse is growing as big as its main man.”
Michael Hogan, Telegraph

“The boys had a lovely time, visiting Torquay to see the site of the old Gleneagles hotel that inspired [John] Cleese to dream up the show. They even parked a Mini on the corner of the very cul-de-sac where Basil broke down in every sense, in the Gourmet Night episode. And of course they thrashed the car with a tree branch. Last week they did Porridge, and next week it’s The Office. This is gentle, nerdy television for blokes who want an excuse to be kids again. David said his dad, according to family legend, once laughed at Fawlty Towers so hard, he fell off the sofa. ‘Love to have seen that,’ he mused.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Why climb a mountain? Really, there’s only one answer: to prove that you can – to yourself, to other people, to the world at large. Is that a good enough reason? Not always, as demonstrated by this thought-provoking but ultimately not particularly revealing documentary about Norwegian mountaineer Kristin Harila. From the off, we know this won’t be a straightforwardly inspiring tale of an ordinary person performing incredible feats against all the odds. That, despite Harila being relatively ordinary – a competitive cross-country skier in her youth, she was working for a furniture company when she took up mountain climbing – and her indisputably incredible achievements. In 2023, she obliterated the speed record for reaching the world’s 14 highest peaks; the previous fastest time was just over six months; Harila did it in 92 days. The glory, however, was short-lived. In retrospect, the experience was “hell and a nightmare”, she says. Not so much because of the climbs themselves – although the mountainside footage suggests hellish and nightmarish to be broadly accurate descriptors – but because of something that happened during the final ascent, which cast a particularly bleak shadow over all of Harila’s efforts.”
Rachel Aroesti, The Guardian