30 Mar '12

“I liked the developing-tray titles and its melancholy incidental piano music. But there is so much not to like too. The characters are archetypes. And it is almost totally humourless.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“Paula Milne has done a remarkably good job, and you feel at least that she has lived the decades she’s dramatizing.”Gerard Gilbert, The Independent

“The first couple of outings left me lukewarm. Like a broken iron in the back of a cupboard I left it for a while and then pulled it out again last night only to find it quite a bit hotter.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

“The only satisfaction this series offered was Joe ending up with Lucy. The route Bill Gallagher’s plot took getting there managed to be both unlikely and predictable.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“It was patriotically pleasing to see Great Britain leading the way, although Smith… decided he needed to inject some novelty into what otherwise would be a succession of interviews with curators.”
Gerard Gilbert, The Independent

“I am struggling to get emotionally attached to these bees. Even Tamsin Greig, doing the voiceover, sounds ever so slightly bored.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“Why does Werner Herzog’s series credit him as a writer? How can you script a real conversation, least of all one with people who’ve committed multiple murders and are now about to be murdered themselves?”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express