With the departure of Big Brother (Pete to win! LOL!!) and the impending demise (please let it be for the last time) of Love Island, it seems the schedules are about to ripen and bursting with the promise of fresh TV fruits. Autumn launches are on the horizon, ITV might just be steering a course to calmer waters, and Graham Norton is another 4 million quid richer. Again.
To Kidnap a Princess (Monday 9pm ITV1) sees ITV step in the right direction by dramatising the attempted abduction of Princess Anne in 1974 by Ian Bell. For starters, I didn’t even know there was an attempted abduction of Princess Anne in 1974, so ITV instantly satisfies a rare public service remit by educating me on something I previously had no knowledge about. I expect the channel is more in shock about this fact than I am… It’s a credible job, but I am getting a little weary of the constant need to dramatise events (although C4 wakes me up somewhat on Thursday in this genre). Why can’t anybody do a simple documentary anymore?
Even more of a surprise is the sudden upturn in EastEnders’ likeability (Monday 8pm, BBC1) as Ian Beale drags “Mrs Beale” (being Dawn in disguise) off to the Walford Community Charitable Trust conference, thus beginnign a week of comedy situations for Walford’s whipping boy. This is the kind of cringe-worthy comedy material that Enders has a track record of doing so badly in the past, but bizarrely pulls it off. With Jane on the way to the hotel and threatening to ruin Ian’s deception and Dawn getting it on with a bloke called Rob, I had to look twice and make sure Ray Cooney’s name wasn’t on the writing credits.
In the interests of balance, Coronation Street (Monday 7.30 and 8.30pm, ITV1) continues to ride high in the effortless way it just seems to have in spades at the moment. Tonight, my oft cited emotional heart of the show, Ashley and Claire, are having some strife as Claire displays just how much she isn’t adapting to life as a mother and leaves Baby Peacock in the back of the car while she goes walkabout. And I’m not even going to mention the whole Charlie/Maria thing…
Sorted (Tuesday 9pm BBC1) comes to a satisfying conclusion, and I’m hoping this isn’t the last we’ve seen of this likeable drama in the company of the Manchester posties. The series as a whole has been a bit like the Royal Mail itself - it delivers nine times out of ten, and you’re usually happy to see it coming down the drive. Tonight, it’s Dex’s wedding, while Barmpot struggles in the aftermath of his involvement in an armed robbery.
Elsewhere, the first episode of Little Miss Jocelyn (Tuesday 10.30pm, BBC3) has me more than a little nervous. BBC3 sketch comedy goes from the immortal (early Little Britain), through very promising (Man Stroke Woman), to the embarrassingly risible (Tittybangbang, what else?), and the trailers for this vehicle for the talented Jocelyn Jee Esien, late of Three Non Blondes, leads me to think this will be promising, with reservations. The trailer has become just too ubiquitous, but there seems to be a wide mix of characters to satisfy in fits and starts. One to watch…
Channel 4 enjoys its new-found schedule freedom and promptly lands itself with a slab of prime American drama, and one that will strike a chord in these troubled times we live in. Sleeper Cell (Wednesday 10pm C4) applies a The Sopranos style approach to character development by depicting a cell of terrorists as rounded, real people. Controversial? Oh yes, but don’t worry, our main character is an undercover FBI agent, so we still get to cheer along for the good old US of A. This is slick stuff, and highly compelling viewing, but beware, C4 has decided to run the 10 part series as a five feature length instalments. Get the coffee on…
Storyville: Behind the Couch (Wednesday 9.40pm, BBC4) is an edition of the always-excellent BBC4 documentary strand. Behind the Couch focuses on the work of the casting director as German director Veit Heimer shadows the casting process of a Hollywood movie. Interweaved are interviews with some of LA’s top casting directors, going someway to showing that the casting director’s work is possibly the most important aspect of a film’s genesis.
Although I was bemoaning the lack of straight down the line documentaries on our screens these days, I’m quite throwing that moan out of the window in the face of the magnificent Nuremberg: Goering’s Last Stand (Thursday 9pm, C4). Stunning. That’s the only word needed to describe this dramatisation of the events surrounding Hermann Goering’s life from 1945 to his cell-bound death in 1946. This has shades of the supremely brilliant Downfall about it, not least of all in the breathtaking performance of Hannes Hellmann as Goering. You will find this thoroughly engrossing, and fair play to C4 for devoting two hours the schedule to such a stupendous piece of television.
And on Friday, we’ll just pause for a second for our ritual laughing and pointing at My Hero (Friday 8.30pm, BBC1). To my knowledge, Rupert Grint hasn’t been in it, so I’m safe to deride this nonsense for the dross that it is.
And again we turn to C4 for the best TV of the evening, and in a moment of nice symmetry, one household of dysfunctional idiots has been replaced in the schedules by another Yes, The Simpsons are back on terrestrial prime time. Yes, these episodes have been shown to death already on Sky One, but who cares, it’s great to have Springfield’s finest at the heart of C4’s schedules, and blasting off with a double header featuring one of the always excellent Hallowe’en specials.