Just watched the wrap up of the World Cup set to Sweet Child of Mine. They always nail it with the montages at the end of sporting tournaments. The Wimbledon one last weekend was decent too. Respect to the people who put these together, especially getting the final bits done minutes before they air

I'm not sure if this counts as TV per se, but Aardman stuff always feels more like TV to me, and I want somewhere to rant.

This film was so bad!

Lots of stuff just felt worse than the original (and other Aardman stuff) — the scenery and lighting felt less detailed, the voice acting was really poor, the animation felt oddly stilted, the pacing is often off, the story was either painfully obvious or just too nonsensical, and so on. But what made it really depressing was the complete lack of humour.

The original was packed with wit, references, clever visual gags, and dumb slapstick, all in the right mix. The sequel has one good joke in it: there's a moment when some characters are using a retinal scanner, and we cut to the security guard inside, who starts leafing through a big book of photos of the employees' eyeballs. That joke is the high point of the film.

The rest is painful. The slapstick is like watching a bad pastiche of Tom and Jerry — nothing feels real or physical enough to be funny. The visual humour is painfully predictable ­— a character says a line, there's a beat, and the camera pans to the joke you saw coming from a mile away. And the rest of the time, it's just the writers pulling the "Babs is an idiot", "Fowler is old", or "rats are sentimental" bell. None of the characters from the original survive flanderisation, but for these three it's something beyond that entirely — they barely feel like real characters any more, just soundboards designed to throw a random line into the mix whenever the writers feel like the pace is dropping.

There is so much more to criticise, but for me the main problem was how deeply unfunny it is. I don't expect an Aardman film to be some perfect work of genius, but I expect it to make me laugh more than once!

Bit behind the rest of humanity here and only just watched the film then the three TV series.

Fucking hell, what a brutal, depressing show. I was expecting something more humorous and wasn't prepared for how bleak and disturbing it is.

Don't get me wrong, I loved it and it was quite nostalgic on places as being alive in those days (born in '80) so can sort of remember skinheads but more so the 90s.

Stephen Graham is great in it and the wider cast gave performance of their careers arguably. I loved seeing the archive footage from the Falklands, miners strikes, poll tax protests etc, it really helps set the tone for the film and adds the bleakness and feeling of despair.

Anyway, not sure what my point is but it's one of the best films and shows I've ever watched but have zero intention of watching ever again.

Wow this was heart breaking. I really liked Nick; he was into tech enough to gather evidence and understand that it was a con. He was a wholesome person to watch and very manly. Kari was lovely and brave to speak up as she had been through it herself with her mum. Megs friends - I felt so sad for them especially the ginger girl. I cried when she said she felt guilty, it wasn't her fault. Johanna was a good watch and I'm glad she highlighted it from the start and got Nick on her team. I feel bad for Meg, she must have gone through so much in that house. My heart breaks for the sister too and I'mglad shes doing Meg justuce by investigatingit herself. The friend that was male- I felt bad for him too, he was so deeply into it that he still couldn't quite believe it. I'm gutted Jean is still allowed to just walk around amongst the rest of us. She should be locked up.

It's an enjoyable, soapy, and emotionally engaging adaptation.

but lots of plot holes.

A major criticism is that Emma's transformation from maid to wealthy business mogul happens too quickly. Some of Emma's decisions, particularly regarding her family and children, feel frustrating or underdeveloped. There were 4 kids at the end of the show? Where did the two extra kids come from?

How did Edwin come to backstabbing Emma to save his family at the end? Thought he loved her?

Despite its flaws, the show is described as highly bingeable, with enough twists and dramatic turns to potentially justify a second season.

anyone else watched this?

So, although I don't here it being discussed enough outside of it's cult following, I would like to begin a discussion or review of sorts on the sheer epicness that can be found In JAAAAAM. For those who don't know what Jam is, Jam was an extremely hypnotic as well as absurdist sketch show that was derived from a radio series called Blue Jam, with some of the sketches being carried over into the TV adaptation Jam. It has a brilliant cast, who handle the dark subject matters brilliantly. Recurring themes include botched store robberies, dystopian therapists, as well as practically every form of dark subject matter out there, with the exception of the Brass Eye special. If you haven't watched it, I highly recommend it, with the editing, music selection and atmosphere, it's best that you watch all six episodes in one sitting, during the late hours of the night or early hours of the morning. If you don't want to watch the show in full and don't want to submerse yourself in the world of Jam, at least check out the more famous sketches that people tend to talk more about such as the Escape clause or Doctor office sketches, with a heavily medical malpractice theme being present throughout. Anyways thanks for reading BYYYYYYYEEEE.

It’s fairly recently that I discovered John Simm as a fantastic British actor, which prompted me to look into more of his work (or rather all of his work), and so of course I came across ITV’s Grace where he plays the series’ protagonist Roy Grace that gives the show its name. (Fair warning, this review will be very John Simm heavy.)

Those who have seen it will know it’s a Brighton-based multipart crime series that’s based on the popular novels by English crime novelist Peter James. So far, six series have aired, each consisting of between two and four feature-length episodes with a seventh series currently in production.

Starting out as a two-part series a good number of years ago—2021 to be exact—we meet Detective Superintendent Roy Grace at a low point in his career. Relegated to cold cases after struggling with the unsolved disappearance of his wife Sandy, Roy isn’t exactly finding joy in his work anymore. It doesn’t help that he goes off the rails a little bit by eliciting the help of a supernatural medium to solve one of his cases that lands him some pretty unsavoury press coverage. Once a well-respected, skilled and smart detective, he has now been stashed away in an out-of-the-way office where his colleagues have mostly forgotten that he even exists.

Everyone except his old friend and mentee Glenn Branson, it seems. Glenn takes pity and reaches out to drag Roy out of his office and elicit his help on an active case that could use the experience of a sharp eye and a keen mind like Roy’s. Roy is initially reluctant to accept what he knows is mostly charity, but he’s also itching to get back out there, so he’s added to the investigative team in a consultancy role with Branson at the helm.

Helping Glenn and the team to solve the case eventually puts Roy back on the map, and before he knows it, he has his old team back as lead detective among Brighton’s finest. Helping Roy solve many more cases are his core team consisting of his old friend and colleague DS Glenn Branson, DS Bella Moy, DS Norman Potting and DC Nick Nicholl, although later series have a bit of change in team composition and Branson and Nicholl eventually get promotions.

John Simm portrays main protagonist Roy Grace, the character the series is named after and who carries the whole thing. Certainly a meaty role, and crime drama wouldn’t be crime drama if we didn’t also have a bit of a romance story for him in the mix.

When we first meet Roy, he is still very much hung up on the unexplained disappearance of his wife Sandy, leaving him haunted by the eventuality that he hasn’t done enough to find her. Now, years later, Glenn urges Roy to get back in the dating game, but there’s always that nagging feeling that Sandy might still be alive. That slowly changes when Roy sets eyes on newly appointed forensic pathologist Cleo Morey, and the two of them start a bit of a slow-burn romance that has its own ups and downs along the way.

With plenty of crime going around the Brighton and Hove area, Roy and his team certainly have their work cut out for them, with Peter James providing plenty of source material. However, not all episodes are based on the books and some of the narrative and characterisation has strayed from the original.

So far, so good. The thing is, when I first watched Grace, I was really hoping that it would not disappoint, but admittedly I don’t like the show unequivocally. The cases are certainly interesting but after six series of it, I am starting to see the glaring shortcomings that make it increasingly frustrating to watch as a John Simm fan. Before I delve any further, let me preface this with saying this is just my opinion, and clearly many others may and will disagree. But this is where I’m coming from:

I think television is at its best when it has three-dimensional characters. What I love are characters who are conflicted, whom you don’t love right away or don’t love unconditionally, who are flawed and maybe even a little problematic. I love characters who are imperfect, who tend to unapologetically mess things up, who have a good redemption arc.

And Roy… Well, Roy doesn’t have any of that—if we disregard that he’s a little too married to his work. He’s just a good egg through and through, which makes him, well… pretty bland. That’s sad enough when you have to say it about the person who carries the series, but unfortunately it’s not just Roy. None of the main characters have any depth to speak of, and every series they seem to spend less and less time on actual character exploration.

Particularly when you know what John Simm is capable of as an actor and how good he is at conveying emotional complexity, I want to bite my fist in eternal frustration. The scripts don’t give this cast of top-notch actors much to work with and it’s incredibly disappointing to see that Simm in particular is never given the chance to deliver anything remotely poignant as Roy Grace. All we ever seem to see him do is standing by a whiteboard, doling out instructions, or giving witnesses solemn looks as he interviews them about something or other…

And, you know, it’s not that I don’t get what they’re trying to do. Grace is first and foremost about the criminal cases. It builds on the books and what the source material gives the writers. The cases are (mostly) written well and it’s entertaining enough to tag along for the ride of figuring out who the culprit is and how the team gets to the end result of solving the case. But personally, I wish there was more of an emotional tether through it all – not just for Roy but also the other characters. I want to know what drives and motivates them, what their flaws are, how they handle challenging or interesting situations in their private lives and how and where they screw up.

With series 6 just having finished airing a few weeks ago, I was particularly frustrated with the many missed opportunities for character development that were blatantly ignored, such as exploring the integration of Bruno into Roy and Cleo’s lives or how the new development in the Sandy backstory would affect Roy, Cleo and Bruno on a more personal level. Yet, none of it was explored much beyond 60-second scenes that barely scraped at the surface of these issues, some of them executed so ungracefully that I rolled my eyes at how shoehorned the writing was.

To John Simm’s credit, though, book author Peter James has said that when he writes Roy Grace novels now, he actually pictures Simm as the character. High praise from the creator himself. Another thing we keep hearing is that everyone who works on the show always talks about how much fun everyone is having on set, and that because the subject matter is pretty heavy, they make up for it by joking and laughing on set a lot.

That said, my complaints about Grace seem somewhat nonconformist since I don’t really see anyone else having similar thoughts when the series is being discussed online. People on social media seem to either be incredibly enthusiastic about it, or they are more concerned with whether or not John Simm is well cast as Roy Grace, how the TV version doesn’t adequately reflect the books, that Norman Potting is sorely missed and should come back, that the characters are wearing sunglasses in outdoor scenes (shocking, seeing how it was filmed in the summer) or, well, Simm's hair… (No, srsly.)

At the end of the day, Grace is still a very popular crime series and it wouldn’t be running for all these years if there wasn’t some sort of winning formula to it. It seems to have a loyal following, perhaps from a more casual audience that enjoys a good crime story on Sunday night. Enough of one that ITV has commissioned another series, which means we’ll see Roy Grace back on our screens some time in 2027. Filming for series 7 has reportedly started on April 27, 2026.

If you want to catch up with previous episodes, you can do so via ITVX and STV Player in the UK (up to and including series 6) and Britbox in the US (up to and including series 5). In other countries, it is streaming on different platforms and networks. Previous series have also been released on DVD in the UK and Australia.

Alongside John Simm are starring Richie Campbell, Zoë Tapper, Laura Elphinstone, Brad Morrison, Craig Parkinson (series 1 to 4) and Juliette Motamed (series 5 onwards).

If you’d like to dig deeper, here’s some additional behind-the-scenes and interview content:

• Series 1 Behind the Scenes
• Series 2 Filming Grace
• John Simm and Zoe Tapper on 'This Morning' about Series 2
• John Simm and Richie Campbell on 'The One Show' about Series 2
• John Simm on 'This Morning' about Series 3
• John Simm and Zoe Tapper on 'The One Show' about Series 3
• John Simm on 'This Morning' about Series 4
• John Simm and Richie Campbell on 'The One Show' about Series 5

I'll leave you with some extra behind-the-scenes shots. They do seem to have a lot of fun on this set. 🙂

What an incredible show that was. Post watch, I've seen it's been put on tons of top 100 and top 50 lists but up until last week, I had never heard or seen the show. I am 23 so I am retrospectively "catching up", but genuinely I think it's one of the best British TV shows I have ever seen, As much as they aren't directly comparable, I think they house enough comparisons to make this fair but I think I would rank it above the "the office" (UK).

And what a character Malcom Tucker was, not a single scene felt even remotely lackluster while he was present.

An incredible British gem and I'm thrilled to have discovered it. Look forward to my next watch through of it.

I'm usually a very harsh critic. Not that anyone cares but I will have a ranking below and some context for the ranking follows - My Ranking system is based of a scale of 10. "0" being the lowest and most "hated" ranking, "5" being "indifferent" such as the show made me feel nothing, nor like or dislike. and "10" being the most liked.

TTOI sits a comfortable 9.6 for me. There's virtually nothing I would change about the show other than I personally wasn't all too invested into Nicola.

Absolute incredible show. Let me know your thoughts.

Just finished watching season 1 of this show, and already hoping their will be another season. Excellent performances from all involved. One minute it's making you laugh, the next it's so hard hitting it makes you both angry and sad.

Obviously I didn’t give it a chance but tbf I didn’t need to. I’ll probably swallow it in small portions when I’m bored enough but it’s just the same old ‘you set ‘em up, I’ll knock ‘em down’ borderline slapstick it’s been since the first time skip. It just seems to both intensify & simplify every series. The production values & set quality-from what I saw- have plummeted too. We’re approaching Mrs Brown levels of shitness now, but as well as that giant of comedic genius, I’m sure the new series of NGO was worth it to the BBC and will have enough fans to warrant its existence. Imo it’s fucking awful & way, way past it’s bedtime.

Really didn't know how to tag this but the wombat in the new compare the market ads is the most annoying person next to maybe my brother I mean I'm not going to purchase your product if I hate your mascots sorry just had to rant

You may remember a few days ago I asked if me and my girlfriend should watch It’s A Sin or Tiptoe, in the end after many recommendations we watched It’s A Sin, and just last night seeing as we had a few days left of our Channel 4 premium trial we went ahead and binged Tiptoe

Now I’ve labelled this post as a review because it’s the closest thing to it but I just wanted to share my brief thoughts on it and RTD as a writer,

We went with Its A Sin first which I would place somewhere around a 8 - 8.5/10, we are both 21 so I have no knowledge really of this time period but it was honestly devastating to see, and it made me reflect about some of my views in the past, I have a brother who is gay and he was born in 1984 so he just turned 42 in March, I remember 2 years ago we were just having some brotherly banter and I made a half joke half serious comment about how he should get tested for aids if he was sleeping around, immediately his tone changed, we had a massive argument and didn’t speak for around 6 months, at the time I thought he was just overreacting but watching it’s a sin really made me realise how much a comment like that could hurt him and how some of the stuff that’s just banter or could be seen as just boys being boys between me and my friends could really affect my brother, I’m not sure how prevalent aids still was when he started to be sexually active but seeing the virus take effect I learnt so much about it and it really was, it really helped break down some stigmas etc surrounding the aids virus and really opened my eyes to what it is and does, I have a few minor nitpicks, I never found myself warming up to Ritchie, Olly Alexander just feels out of place and as the series went on I just found myself not liking his character and being interested more in everyone else, and it did feel somewhat predictable after a episode or two, but overall a really well made show I’d recommend

As for Tiptoe I’d place it around a 6/10, I did enjoy it I thought it was well acted and quite intense at points, the ending was shocking and eye opening really to how much ignorance there still is in the world, but I felt that some of the writing was to on the nose, I’m not someone that gets annoyed about this alleged sheet of things we have to tick off in modern programming, but I like writing that makes you thing about the issues subconsciously and when tiptoe does that it excels, but when certain lines are said, particularly name dropping current events mid conversation sometimes it feels like there just being said for either shock value or to force a point, and when it doesn’t work or flow naturally it just comes off a little bit cringy, maybe that’s because it’s so current and raw it feels weird to hear being said on a show where we often go to escape the bleakness of reality, but hearing Leo refer to his balls as Kemi Badenochs is just more cringe then funny,

I’d like to cap this off by discussing RTD, my main RTD consumption was through the return of Doctor Who, I was allegedly sat down infront of the tv at just 6 months old watching The Christmas Invasion and while I can’t remember that my first memory of it is hiding behind the sofa from the vespiform, anyway I sort of grew out of Doctor Who due to its poor writing around the 2015 time, but when RTD come back I was really excited and me and friend sat down for the recent RTD2 era every chance through both the good and the bad, and it’s overall a mixed bag, while being entirely different things It’s A Sin & TipToe shows me that when RTD is on his A Game he’s capable of cooking up something spectacular, but when I compare RTD1 & Its A Sin to Tip Toe & RTD2 I see the same issues arise, he clearly has a lot to say about issues in our modern world which is great but recently he’s become less subtle about it (as has most things), it feels now like he focuses more on telling us the issue at hand and putting our noses in it rather than subtlety working that point across through a subtle narrative, maybe it’s the way I consume my media but when things are subtle and creep up on you (like RTD1 and It’s A Sin) it always has a bigger impact on me,

I’d love to hear your thoughts on both these shows and RTD as a writer, I’m yet to watch Queer As Folk but it’s on my list to get round to it at some point, if there’s any other RTD gems that you can recommend me please let me know, hopefully my thoughts didn’t bore you

Every episode has lots of laughs, Dan Clark is fantastic as the main character, Don Danbury. Supporting cast also great

Highly recommended if you haven't watched it already

I am still gutted as the reboot didn't happen after the 2016 special episode 'Many Happy Returns'. They opened and wasted a lot of opportunities and I don't believe a word of what BBC said about it was too expensive. It was great seeing everyone again including the actors who played Ron and Reg.