After the Flood - Season 2 (2026 Mick Ford)

Sophie Rundle and her ex Mark Stokoe are having to tolerate the situation that bad guy murderer Nicholas Gleaves is still around.

Then a body is found on the moors.

Lorraine Ashbourne, Philip Glenister, Jill Halfpenny, Alan Armstrong.

The Night Manager - Season 2 (2026 David Farr)

John Le Carré had died and never had a Carré sequel been written without him. Farr says the idea for how it continued came to him in a dream - a little boy, waiting in a monastery.

Anyway, it's ten years later. Opens with Olivia Colman seeing Roper's body and pronouncing him dead. The Tom Hiddlestone character has had a complete identity change and is running a group of Intelligence surveillance agents. Sees something that convinces him there's a connection to the old Richard Roper dodgy arms deals. Without authorisation he sends his team in and two of them are killed. A survivor, Hayley Squires (I, Daniel Blake), joins him to seek out the bad man responsible, Diego Calva.

In Episode 3 (of 6) I was just thinking "This isn't as good as the last one, because Hugh Laurie isn't in it" and guess what happened?

Camilla Morone, Alistair Petrie, Douglas Hodge, Indira Varma, Michael Nardone, Paul Chahidi. And whoever played the great detective who works with Pine.

Did not see that ending coming.

Looks like it cost a lot of money even if they didn't actually go to all the locations. Photographed by Tim Sidell and edited eps 1-4 by Izabella Curry (with Napoleon Stratogiannakis on 2 and Dan Crinnion on 3). Stratogiannakis did 5 on his own and Crinnion did 6. Music Federico Jusid.

Silent Witness - Season 6 (2001)

The Fall Out. Tony McHale. Director Coky Giedroyc.

A multi-vehicle pile up includes an unidentified woman and a solitary dismembered arm which doesn't belong to any of the bodies. Sam investigates with her new posse of William Gaminara and Tom Ward (good; Death Comes to Pemberley, The Infinite Worlds of HG Wells) who has to perform his first autopsy on a child.

Shaun Dooley, Luing Andrews, Christopher Fulford are all involved, as is a gang of Albanians.

Paterson Joseph is on traffic. Lia Williams is a truly annoying DS who won't tell Sam what's really going on and thus indirectly causes the deaths of girls being sex trafficked, Barnaby Kay her No. 2.

Kith and Kill. Peter Lloyd. Director Renny Rye.

There's been something of a massacre in a family home belonging to a ruthless haulier. Sam and her N Ireland ex Stuart Graham investigate.

With Ben Crompton, Russell Tovey, Amber Noble.

Silent Witness Quadruple bill (1999 - 2000)

 A Good Body, Writer J.C. Wilsher. Director David Thacker.

A fire in a cinema leaves one unidentified body... who turns out to be someone presumed dead and for whose murder Jack Dee languishes in prison. (How someone could be convicted of murder when there's no body is something that bothered us.) Turns out the police were over-keen to do him, cueing arguing between Sam and her ex boss Nick Reding. And Sam having a most unsuitable fling.

The World Cruise. Writer Tony McHale. Director Coky Giedroyc.

Two old Jewish men are found murdered. But how does this connect with a professor who's championing genetic engineering (Richard Todd, Stage Fright, The Dam Busters)? He certainly upsets one of Sam's students, who is horribly cocky and forward with her. And is racist Neil Maskell involved? And ageing professor, Andrew Sachs (and wife Suzannah Bertish)?

It's a good one. Ace Bhatti is a new DCI. Takes us right in to the heart of Auschwitz.

Two Below Zero. Tom Needham. Director Rob Evans.

A naked body is found in the Norwegian snow. Then another. One of them is the daughter of Stephen Moore (The Boat That Rocked, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) and Mel Martin. Odious sex pervert Anthony Head is the uncle.

I was surprised to learn that a woman can carry two babies of different fathers.

Managed to guess the villain before the end. With Angela Bruce from Angels and Richard Graham as 'Stephen Merchant'.

Faith. Stephen Brady. Director Paul Unwin.

Sam is ill. Thinks it might be affecting her judgement in case of headmaster's wife who appears to have killed herself. In taking a break, Sam is called in by the Catholic Church to investigate a 'saint', meets nun Kathryn Hunter.

With Philip Jackson, Prunella Scales, Matthew Marsh.

Thought this one was actually badly directed: too much extreme close ups, unnecessary slow mo, deliberately obscured shots. Yes, it appears I've had problems with him before.

Broken Lullaby (1932 Ernst Lubitsch & prod)

You know that expression 'Scream if you want to go faster'? (Actually I think it's a Gerry Halliwell song title.) Well, in relation to this film, SCREAM!!

Yes, after a nicely edited montage of Paris, Armistice Day 1919, Lubitsch lets the pace drop considerably, with long, turgid, stagey sequences of dialogue; really strange considering the zip with which he made his silent films.

French Phillips Holmes (terribly wooden) travels to Germany to confess to the family of the German soldier he has killed. But when he meets Lionel Barrymore, Louise Carter and fiancee Nancy Carroll, he cannot bring himself to. Until ultimately (in the last 10 minutes) he does to the girl.

When the couple play out on a duet I wanted to hurl something at the TV.

It didn't help that Barrymore kept making me think of Mark Heap.

Lubitsch's worst film, but not all bad.

With Lucien Littlefield (good), Zasu Pitts relegated to role of maid. Written by Samson Raphaelson and Ernest Vajda from Maurice Rostand play. Photographed by Victor Milner at Paramount.

Only Angels Have Wings (1939 Howard Hawks)

According to Hawks this was based on real characters, the pilot in a little airfield and the chorus girl who falls for him, and the flyer who has to prove his bravery; even the eagle flying through the windshield actually happened during the shoot.

Good production design - the port in the opening, the airfield - attributed to art director Lionel Banks. Lovely lighting from Joe Walker. Edited by Viola Lawrence.

Classic Hawks framing evident, e.g. scene of Jean Arthur 'performing' at piano. 

Cary Grant, Thomas Mitchell, Richard Barthelmess, Rita Hayworth, Sig Ruman, Allyn Joslyn.

I tried to get on a Hawks double bill, with The Big Sleep next, but it was not to be.

Peter Bogdanovich came up with the interesting theory that the characters of Grant in this, Bogart in The Big Sleep and John Wayne in Rio Bravo were the same person at different times in their lives, something with which Hawks did not disagree.

Silent Witness: Season 4 (1999)

Gone Tomorrow. Writer Niall Leonard. Director Matthew Evans.

A helicopter goes down in the North Sea. Sam is called in (she's now based in London). we learn that a pan pan call is one registering an urgent issue, one down from a mayday.

It is (of course) more complicated than it appears; has something of a far-fetched ending. Somewhat clumsily directed.

With Paul Copley, Robert Pugh, Nigel Terry, Melanie Hill, Karen Henthorn.

A Kind of Justice. Writer Peter Lloyd. Director Richard Signy.

Sam is called in by a man accused of murder, Tom Georgeson - she believes him, and an unlikely friendship ensues. Turns out he's connected with the very bad Georghiou brothers, only one of whom now survives, Peter Jonfield.

Police involved - Aden Gillett, David Lyon, Patrick Cremin - may be corrupt.

Sub-story about youth sucked in to world of crime doesn't really add to it or go anywhere.

With Isobel Middleton.

Gorecki: Symphony No. 3 (2019 Michal Merczunski)

Performed by Beth Gibbons of Portishead and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by none other than Krzysztof Penderecki.

The DP is Dariusz Jarzyna, edited by Marek Kremer. Actually recorded in 2014.

A real treat to see it actually performed live, showing for example that though there is a brass section, it's largely dormant. It's a staggering work and probably our joint favourite symphony ever. 'The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs' indeed.

It's not easy to top One Battle After Another, but this does it hands down.

The Best Things in 2026

Say Nothing.

The Inspector Lynley Mysteries.

One Battle After Another. Far fuckin' out, brother!

Silent Witness (1998)

Brothers in Arms. Writer John Milne. Director Ian Knox.

What looks like a farming accident involving a combine harvester is linked to the murder of a civilian by British troops in Northern Ireland in 1985.

Ben Daniels (much on TV; we probably recognise him chiefly from Cutting It), Phil McKee, Stuart McQuarrie, Elizabeth Berrington.

Sam and the DS have a quick snog; his wife's gone back to London.

One Battle After Another (2025 Paul Thomas Anderson & scr)

Like Inherent Vice, it's inspired by a novel by Thomas Pynchon, 'Vineland', which is about repression in the US in the 1980s contrasted with the revolutionary spirit of the 1960s - a feeling that is well caught here despite the updating in time. The first thing we see is a group of - what else can you call them? - revolutionaries freeing Mexicans from an internment camp - theirs is a very sixties phenomenon, with code words and a daft revolutionary name, The French 75. (This may link to The Battle of Algiers, which is on TV later, a definite pointer to the story.) 'The Revolution Will Not be Televised' is cited, a 1970 black liberation song by Gil Scott-Heron, from which the passwords 'Green Acres, Beverley Hillbillies, Hooterville Junction' originate.

What is quite weird is what is going on sexually between far Right army officer Sean Penn and Teyana Taylor - though when they meet, their performances are so stunning that it slips into the shade. Anyway it's important in plot terms, as we shall see.

And despite this sixties revolutionary flavour we're very much thinking of Trump's America - the next revolutionary thing they do is to blow up two (empty) court houses as a protest again the overthrow of abortion laws - a very timely piece of writing. And here's the thing - we actually are on the side of the revolutionaries, because it's almost like in Trump's America, what else is there to do? The military secret force which goes in to Mexico to raid a chicken factory and pull students out of a high school dance are like ICE, or the SS, if you want to put it it that way.

So this is all very timely, and doesn't need a plot dissection. It's also quite funny - the opposite of the revolutionaries is an extremely right wing organization called the 'Christmas Adventure Club' who are so appallingly racist that it's quite funny. (Was Anderson a Kubrick fan? There's something about this organization's meeting that is as bizarrely funny as similar scenes in Kubrick films. 'Colonel Lockjaw' sounds like a Dr Strangelove character.) And the 'trackers' that never work.

In fact these two opposite camps very neatly represent the polarization present today, and not just in America, either; there's no middle-of-the-road 'normal' people in it.

But while all this is going on, Anderson manages to achieve that same propulsive force that Magnolia also has - it's partly the way Johnny Greenwood's (and others) music moves it, almost wall-to-wall music. It just gives it this amazing forward motion that you find hard to interrupt.

The main story takes place sixteen years later when Leo Di Caprio has become something of a stoned recluse and worries about his sixteen year old daughter, Chase Infiniti. Vengeful Penn comes back into their lives, and then it turns into a thrilling chase movie, with Benicio del Toro a Zen martial arts teacher who has revolutionary connections.

Certain scenes, like Leo's rooftop escape during which he falls off a building and is tasered, and particularly the climactic car chase with its endless rolling hills, are just stunning cinema. Caught with some beauty by Michael Bauman, unbelievably using old VistaVision cameras, though you have to credit Colin Anderson, the camera / Steadicam operator, and the other members of that huge camera team, that are all part of giving the film its magnificent propulsion. (VistaVision also gives you 8-perf, so a frame of twice the regular size for amazing detail. Actually, they missed a trick there - should have opened with the old VistaVision logo we're so used to seeing at the beginning of Hitch's 50s films.)

The irony of the daughter going off to join in some citizen's protest at the end to Tom Petty's 'American Girl' is not lost on me.

Fabulous performances throughout. Regina Hall, Tony Goldwyn also fabulous as the Christmas assassin.

Edited by Andy Jurgensen (also Licorice PIzza), one of the film's thirteen Oscar nominations.

Also great work from our new favourite make-up lady Heba Thorisdottir. Production design: Florencia Martin.

Silent Witness - Season 3 (1998)

Fallen Idol. Writer Gwyneth Hughes. Director Alex Pillai.

A seventeen year old (who looks about 25 to us) is found dead. Was it her step father (Jesse Birdsall). Was it her mum (a psychotic and unlovely Lesley Manville)? Was it her boyfriend (Nick Bagnall)?

Sam finds out.

Why is it suspects always run away? They will always be caught at some point so why bother? It's a bit of a cliché.

Sam's boyfriend is a bit of a shit. She dumps him. The new DS Nick Reding isn't very happy separated from his wife. Jimi Mistry pops up. Marcelle Duprey is the younger sister.

Divided Loyalties. Well written by Niall Leonard. Directed by Bill Anderson.

A woman is found overdosed and her baby dead. Sam takes a personal interest, blames her GP. Starts getting involved in dodgy underworld of drug pushers, particularly Neil Stuke (who Q insists on now calling 'Stukie'). Turns out he's an undercover copper. People keep dying of the same heroin overdose. Is Drugs Squad DS Josette Simon involved? Is rehab centre manager Alastair Galbraith? Is GP Simon Chandler?

The DS makes the mistake of not listening to Sam - you fool - she's always right! 

"I like churches. Neutral territory."
"Not where I come from."

Silent Witness (1997-8)

Friends Like These. Peter Lloyd. Director Richard Signy.

In a run-down estate, an old woman is found brutally murdered. Chris Fairbank is the inevitable suspect. But Sam has other ideas and recklessly gets herself involved in the case, much to the displeasure of her DS, who actually reports her behaviour officially! The relationship does not last longer than this episode, we are all relieved to hear.

With good performances from young Joe Absolom and Kevin Bishop.

What happened to those two? Absolom has ended up back in soaps - long runs in both Doc Martin and Emmerdale. Bishop has one-off appearances in this and that, starred in the ill-fated Porridge reboot.

An Academic Exercise. Writer Tony McHale. Director Jonas Grimas.

A new (third) season. Sam's sister has gone back to Ireland; and there's no sign of the old lover / DS, so that's good.

A college professor, played by Katharine Schlesinger (niece of John), a friend of Sam's, is murdered. Her husband, the irascible Kevin Doyle (Downton), is a suspect but we know it's not him because (a) he's in the opening scene - as is a very young Nicholas Hoult - and (b) it's too obvious. However I did (for a change) pin the murderer very early on, simply because the editor (who for the record is Kate Evans) shows him once too often and it alerts the TV whodunit senses.

With Anthony Bate (professor), Alec Newman, Andrew Scarborough, Adam James, Emily Hamilton.

Sam finds herself in danger again for becoming too involved (again).

Series composer John Harle brings something new and interesting to the party.

We found the faked answerphone message very obviously suspect the moment we heard it, but it takes ages and all sorts of experts to figure out there's something wrong with it.

Silent Witness - Season 2

Only the Lonely. Writer Gillian Richmond. Director Nicholas Laughland.

Why's she still with him? He keeps questioning her judgment and flying off the handle.

Is rape murder linked to strange young woman (Jessica Lloyd)? Damn right it is!

Sunburn - Season 2 (2000 Mike Bullen)

Mike isn't writing many of these and accordingly the stories are somewhat more far-fetched and arising less from personal and work difficulties. The action has switched to the Algarve and as a pointer to this sea change, the first episode has Alan kidnapped by the Agricultural People's Revolutionary Army (ten people) and held for ransom. 

Most of the team is intact, plus new young Sean Maguire, and the owner of Janus Holidays (whose plot relevance seems to be to be a pain in the arse) Paul Nicholas.

Bizarre dominos contest features a veritable line up of old TV actors: Frank Windsor, Brian Murphy, Windsor Davies etc.

Kept seeing the word 'pessoa', wondering if it was a reference to the writer, but it means 'person' in Portuguese.

Not sure Michelle Collins was the best actor in the world, but she's with quite a run-of-the mill cast (he said, bitchily). Sharon Small doesn't have nearly as much to do this time around.

Silent Winess: Season 2 (1997)

Blood Sweat and Tears. John Milne. Director Julian Jarrold.

Set in the world of boxing. An upcoming boxer dies in the ring, but it's as a result of a previous and illegal bare knuckle fight, involving now crippled gym owner. 

Sam's sister has moved in and is romancing fellow pathologist William Armstrong. And Sam's ex Mick Ford (remember him? From Scum) turns up as the new DS. He has the temerity to question Sam's work and is a bad tempered cunt, so it's a surprise that their relationship renews.

Idris Elba features.

Cease Upon the Midnight. Catherine Morshead. Director Jacqueline Holborough.

Two dying AIDS sufferers are found dead, but unnatural causes are found. Is the brother of one of them responsible, or is it carer Adrian Lester or clinician Roberta Taylor? Sam guesses the culprit but she can't prevent his murder.

Sunburn - Season 1 (1999 Mike Bullen)

The adventures of holiday reps in Cyprus. Michelle Collins is the new senior rep, much to the chagrin of the former most senior member of the team Sharon Small, who finds it hard to disguise her annoyance. A lady on the flight in asks Collins "Have you been to Cyprus before?" and she replies with the good line "Oh yes. I spent a lifetime there one summer"... with Peter Polycarpou - who was in Birds of a Feather but not, as we thought, John Marquez from Doc Martin - but who is now married (to Natalie Robb).

The team is led by George Layton, and also comprises Colette Brown, James Buller, who's in love with a young Greek girl Zeta Graff, and newbie Rebecca Callard.

Usual situations involving guests, who include James D'Arcy (giving women points), Di Botcher (trying to fuck up daughter's marriage), Freddie Jones (incessant complainer who's lost spark), Maxine Peake, Anita Dobson (Shirley Valentine fixation).

Yeah. Good fun. Never released on DVD - saw a from-VHS copy.

Mistresses - Season 3 (2010 Anthony / Clarkson / Glain)

Only a few scant days ago did I write 'I bought this as we were having a Sharon Small withdrawal after The Inspector Lynley Mysteries. Unfortunately it's nowhere near as good.' By the end of this third, shorter series (only four episodes) I was an emotional wreck. Good writing and acting.

Begins promisingly with the four girls meeting but all really angry with one another. What's going on? Then we find out.

And if you want to know, you'll have to watch it yourself.

Joanna Lumley turns up as Katie's mum.

The men: Patrick Baladi, Adam Rayner, Oliver Milburn (failed entrepreneur), Vincent Regan (wants to buy cake business), Mark Bazeley (photographer), Adam Astill (Jessica's former boss). And Alice Patten as the New York wife.

Ride the Pink Horse (1947 Robert Montgomery)

A really interesting film. Ex-serviceman Robert Montgomery arrives in a New Mexico town looking for the man who killed his mate - it's hearing aid wearing Fred Clark (White Heat, Sunset Blvd., A Place in the Sun). Montgomery encounters CIA man Art Smith (Letter From an Unknown Woman, T-Men, Brute Force), femme fatale Andrea King and a mysterious Mexican girl, Wanda Hendrix. And, finally, befriends a Mexican, Pancho, Thomas Gomez. Now all our characters are set up. Montgomery has a piece of evidence that can incriminate Clark - wants $30,000. How he's going to make that transaction and not get killed is the key.

Really well done, from its mysterious silent opening to a splendid scene on a merry-go-round. Great ending, where wounded Montgomery thinks he has only just arrived, doesn't know where the evidence is. Good terse post-war stuff, the angry returning soldier. Good atmosphere, Hendrix a striking presence. ('Flaquita'= 'little skinny girl'.) Good dialogue 'A snake with diamonds', 'Hold the glass in your hand if you're not thirsty' etc.

Add photography from the great Russell Metty and you really have something. Produced by Joan Harrison, edited by Ralph Dawson. Universal.

We know Montgomery from They Were Expendable and recall he had a distinguished navy war career. Films noir like this and Lady in the Lake clearly suited the veteran. When Ladies Meet and Mr & Mrs Smith were earlier acting jobs we're familiar with.

This was written by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer, adapted from Dorothy Hughes' novel (she also wrote the novel 'In a Lonely Place'). Some of the source material had to be toned down - the gangster was originally a corrupt senator.

Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing (1973 Alan J Pakula & prod)

Social miscontent Timothy Bottoms on bicycle tour of Spain ditches it for coach tour, meets prim and proper and uptight Maggie Smith, who has an alarming habit of slipping into dysphasia. They both seem to have a habit of doing ridiculous things, she for example falling out of bed and breaking things, he punching through a hotel wall. Eventually romance is found. He's particularly not that easy to like, but eventually they set off in a shitty rented caravan, and she's almost seduced by a Duke. She confesses that she has the Dreaded Hollywood Terminal Illness and they both go home, though the last moments of the film show them married, in Spain, but whether that's a projection we don't know.

It's a bit of an annoying mess.

Written by Alvin Sargent (Paper Moon, Julia, Ordinary People, Unfaithful) and photographed by Geoffrey Unsworth.

Mournful looking Bottoms' career had already peaked here.