TV Critics: Signed, Sealed, Delivered; Witnesses; The Day They Dropped The Bomb

“Watching people’s livelihoods on the line did not make for uplifting telly, however the network’s employees tried to dress it up. I’m not sure I could stomach two more hours of this (it’s a three-parter). But I might buy one of those tins of dog food next time I stop by my branch – and I don’t have a dog.”
Sally Newall, The Independent

“There’s a trend in TV for these corporate documentaries. They’ve become predictable, with the distinct whiff of a PR exercise. This worthy but plodding production also unearthed too few engaging characters. Second class.”
Michael Hogan, The Telegraph

“Caroline makes an agreeably good villain with her Prada bag, Zumba classes and a basic inability to accept that people might actually matter more than profits. But she’s nowhere near nasty, or interesting enough to fill three episodes. I’d rather Auntie got unique access to mould growing on some bread and filmed it for three hours.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

“This was a depressing hour’s viewing. It’s sad to see the slow death of a national institution. For all the positive noises this documentary made about alternative operational practices and the challenges of change, it’s pretty obvious the community post office is doomed. An air of defeat hung over the whole programme.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“If the purpose of Signed, Sealed, Delivered is to make us feel sorry for the transformers, its first instalment succeeded. Yet if the film had the alternative aim of making us feel nostalgic for this national treasure, it failed. Post offices may have been centres of communities, but they were depressing ones: the nearest Britain ever came to the grey, queuing culture of the Soviet Union.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“What about the high street, and the village, and the community? Of course, it is these questions, and the whole modernisation programme, upheaval and change, that have got people cross, and make it all so involving and interesting. Important, too.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“Witnesses is Normandie noir to the Nordic noir of The Bridge and The Killing. It’s beguiling and stylish, also perhaps a little self-important and pretentious.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“In terms of pace, this intended thriller about le plod’s investigation into exhumed bodies arranged into grim, familial mise en scènes in two show homes certainly, well, plods. Lots of story – but far too much uneven pondering.”
Rob Leigh, The Independent

“Every other scene is shot in a graveyard, usually with a coffin being hauled from a hole, and the villain has been identified as a former dentist with a penchant for painting his face white like a mime artist and murdering young women by night. The production can’t decide whether it is a noir police procedural or a dark fairytale.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“The opening sequence reminds me of those Eighties TV commercials that were so self-consciously arty that everyone just fell about laughing and entirely forgot what product they were being sold. The same might be at the root of the problem here: a drama that’s partly police procedural and partly set in la-la land.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

“Before watching this affecting, important documentary, the horror of that new kind of warfare was not ingrained in my consciousness. Not so now. This is a crucial film by Leslie Woodhead, as for many of the participants, now nonagenarians, this could have been the last time to tell their stories.”
Sally Newall, The Independent