TV Critics: Humans; Nigel Farage Gets His Life Back; The Fall; Operation Gold Rush

“For its second series, Humans has widened its scope with an admirably ambitious opening episode that hopped between the UK, the US, Germany and Bolivia, telling a panoramic story of man versus machine. This is sci-fi with heart and soul.”
Michael Hogan, The Telegraph

“One of the beauties of Humans is that it constantly throws up interesting questions about tech and the future that also resonate with the present and relate to humanity, ethics, politics, immigration even. Humans is a pulse-quickening thriller, and the chase is back on.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“Its first run, last year, was glitchy but thought-provoking: the updated version is far more confident and smoothly executed. Gemma Chan and Emily Berrington are especially good as the highly strung androids.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Humans was co-produced with the American channel AMC, but it still looks cheap and flimsy against its US competitors. The drama-school acting, the tired premise, the provincial locations — it’s all a bit too Blake’s 7 for my liking.”
Ed Potton, The Times

“Kevin Bishop gets the voice, the intonation, the wheezy smoker’s laugh and the mannerisms of his subject so spot on that it soon doesn’t matter that he doesn’t look much like him. [But] it’s not actually very funny.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“As a character comedy, it was wryly tragicomic. As political satire, however, it was less effective. Farage is an easy target and most of the barbs here would simply bounce off him.”
Michael Hogan, The Telegraph

“It was a cruelly downbeat end and viewers holding out for a neat, or at least vaguely hopeful, resolution may have felt slightly cheated.”
Ed Power, The Telegraph

“The Fall, a rare British drama that compares with the best of America, bowed out in dark and satisfying style.”
Ed Potton, The Times

“Between Dr Kevin Fong’s mounting misery and Dan Snow’s gung-ho, go-fetch-it-boy enthusiasm, we got a genuine sense of how it must have been to abandon civilisation and risk everything for the elusive promise of gold.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“This, like Dickens’ London, was interesting to learn about but the detail was thin on the ground compared to the quantity of detail about Dan Snow and Co being brave in extreme conditions.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express