16 Jan '12

“The series’ first instalment died a little every time it went inside the midwives’ dull convent and came back screaming alive when it entered the slums.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“It certainly feels as if it’s probably faithful – beautiful, meticulous, sensitive period drama about love and community and cycling purposefully through the East End of London in order to bring babies into the world against the odds… Obviously I was bored senseless. Oh come on, I’m hardly the target audience, am I?”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“Anyone who expected some pleasant but lazily assembled Sunday night cockle-warmer would have been surprised…Sometimes it was more like a documentary than a period drama but that detail turned this from standard Sunday night fare into something you’d have been foolish to ignore.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

“It’s been born with a silver spoon in its mouth, this: written by Heidi Thomas, based on a best-selling memoir by Jennifer Worth and starring Jenny Agutter, Judy Parfitt and Pam Ferris among others. But from the moment you hear the patrician creak of Vanessa Redgrave on the voiceover, you sense there might be trouble ahead.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“The thing about Sherlock is that we have seen it all before, not simply in the endless adaptations of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories, but in every other show that puts a premium on deductive thought yet finds it freakish… What’s the difference? Only that it has never been done better. I watched last night with an increasing sense of privilege as the detective story so transcended its genre by virtue of its acting, casting, direction and, above all, writing, that it deserved to be considered alongside British TV drama’s highest achievements.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“At times it’s faithful to Sir ACD’s The Final Problem, then it will wander, taking in mobile phone technology and computer hacking and what have you. But it doesn’t feel like cheating; more like an open relationship, agreed by both parties. And they come back together again and again. Faithful where it matters, deep down.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“The last two episodes have had an almost impossible task living up to Stephen Moffat’s opener. But last night’s episode was pretty good even so.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“A bit baggy as an idea… what they’re essentially doing is working for a living.” 
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“BBC3 is the weakest and least self-assured of all the BBC stations. It’s supposed to be a prep school for talented youth, feeding bright young things into BBC2. Actually, it’s been feeble and amateur and looks like a permanent open-mike slot in a hostile pub. A sex-fest is the last desperate act of a Channel 4-chasing station and a desperate commissioning editor. Why were we watching this? What were we supposed to glean from it? What stain of information, what smooch of entertainment, what gasp of insight should we have taken away?”
AA Gill, The Sunday Times 

“What was great about this programme wasn’t the science — it was the scientists… they were completely riveting: charming, gauche and mildly unhygienic.” 
AA Gill, The Sunday Times 

“Crucially, though, no one had bothered to quite explain why we were looking for it; it was taken as read that we are all obviously qualified particle physicists.”
Euan Ferguson, The Observer

“It’s intensely watchable, for hour upon hour – no matter how tired, you will force matchsticks vertically into your eyes to not miss the latest twist… It truly is The West Wing reborn.”
Euan Ferguson, The Observer

“This was beyond grand, and reflected the corporation’s magnificent if over-brief approach to the Dickensian anniversary.”
Euan Ferguson, The Observer