9 May '11

“It was an unhappy hybrid of a documentary, a Bronze Age soap opera and showreel for the BBC’s special effects unit, recounting the eruptions and tsunamis that wiped out the eastern Mediterranean island of Thera in 1620BC.”
Matt Baylis, The Express

“It was half-human, half-bull. Atlantis was 10 per cent history and 90 per cent bull. Had it stuck to the history, the docudrama would have been Bettany Hughes’s Atlantis: The Evidence, with better CGI.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“The heavy-handed doomsday lighting made it look like the build-up to a joke on a Pot Noodle ad. The dialogue sounded like Holby City. (“She’s a Cretan, but let’s not hold that against her!” “He’s drunk, let’s go.” “We can’t, this is in our honour.”) The more dramatic the narration tried to be, the more mundane it sounded.”
Zoe Williams, The Guardian

“BBC1’s eye-wateringly speculative reconstruction of the destruction of Thera – appeared to be about 99 part drama to one part documentary. And, to continue the sausage metaphor, the filling wasn’t exactly free-range and organic. In fact, it bore roughly the same relationship to historical scholarship as a chicken nugget does to a poulet de Bresse hen.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“The great man ably communicated some of his passions. A lifelong supporter of Tottenham Hotsupr, which he bought in 1991, Lord Sugar is horrified by the financial ill-health of England’s clubs.”
Matt Baylis, The Express

“We have found Sugar’s alterative universe, the one place where the market can’t make its own rules, a place where – for the players at least – there should be motives deeper than silver and gold, a place for closed borders and protectionism. In football land, he sounds a bit like Michael Foot. Of course, this is thrilling.”
Zoe Williams, The Guardian

“Does this idea of Doctor as gooseberry to Amy and Rory really work; and is it not time for Matt Smith to tone down his performance and let the Doctor mature a shade?”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“It was an unbelievably lame premise. Imagine if Gok Wan carried on like this. (“This week, I’m going to find a lady with a large arse and large car.”) The telegenicity of your average marine biologist, however, cannot be gainsaid.”
Zoe William, The Guardian

“Robson Green was doubly qualified for the presenting gig. For one thing, his own father was a local miner so he had a genuine connection to the subject. His trip down one of the few remaining working coal mines – still a scary and demanding place – had the frisson of a fate narrowly avoided. For another, he can be reliably guaranteed to cry on camera, which means that a producer can be sure of getting an emotional money shot.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent