TV Critics: Breaking Bad; The Face; Proper Pub Food; Porn on the Brain; Dexter; Booze, Bar Crawls And Bulgaria; A Very British Murder; Giraffe Feast; Inside Broadmoor

“The final episode of Breaking Bad made me wonder how long it will be before cinema is described as televisual. Not only did it look like a movie, it schooled cinema in the art of the full stop, wrapping up some 60 hours of storytelling as if sticking a bow on a 90-minute film.”
Rebecca Nicholson, The Guardian

“The finale simply didn’t reach the heights of what had gone before. Breaking Bad has been utterly electrifying television, weird, funny, emotionally rich and endlessly surprising, but in the end, the finale of this great American series turned out to be one of its lesser episodes.”
Chris Harvey, The Telegraph

“There is, as after a bereavement, a feeling of unreality now that the series is done with… Yesterday’s thrilling, moving, funny finale contained no real breach of plausibility, but perhaps we did not need Walt to spell out that to save his kin was not why he had turned to crime.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“The Face set itself apart from America’s Next Top Model and even the superb RuPaul’s Drag Race with an extra 20 per cent added bitchy… The contestants are all such daft, dewy-skinned little ducklings, that you can’t help but hope they make it out the other side of this madness with at least some self-respect still intact.”
Ellen E Jones, The Independent

“The West Country catchphrases and the air of boozy bonhomie make Tom Kerridge an engaging, genial presenter, and on top of that he can cook. So it’s a pity that 40-year-old Tom’s first cookery show, Proper Pub Food, is being served up like a service station pastie, just a wedge of stodge to fill a gap.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“It was an uncomfortable watch. The frank confessions of teen porn addict Callum were deeply troubling, but most troubling was the queasy sense of guilt shared by all adults who’ve been too busy enjoying the benefits of the gimme-gimme-gimme internet to forestall its consequences.”
Ellen E Jones, The Independent

“For a drama in which a serial killing anti-hero disposed of more than 130 people, the melodramatic finale of Dexter was a bit of a let down… Perhaps, ultimately, the series outstayed its welcome.”
Simon Horsford, The Telegraph

“This documentary was an eye-opener. Dooley wasn’t stuffy or judgmental, and the picture she presented was all the scarier for it.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Top-notch stuff, although the sight of Worsley dressing up and doing Victorian melodrama nearly murders it for me.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

“The documentary felt half-finished: the camera crew hadn’t been able to collect any footage of how the lions hunted and killed the giraffes. All we saw was lazy, well-fed cats sprawling over each other in the sunshine, like Brits behaving badly on the beach.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Lingering prejudices told me what to expect from Inside Broadmoor: a chilling account of sick patients chained to beds in a TB-infested asylum, the only treatment offered being opium and a sermon. I was delighted to be proved wrong… Moral treatment was an important part of the daily routine and the patients, all women at first, spent their days busily knitting and cleaning.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express