“This was a hugely entertaining way to get your thoughts provoked.”

The 80s

The 80s, BBC2

“Once again, this was a hugely entertaining way to get your thoughts provoked, even if the sight of Radio 1 DJ Mike Smith showing us how to unroll a condom was something that shouldn’t have been broadcast without a three-minute warning.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Sandbrook’s sense of humour leads him into glibness, but overall his account has much to be said in its favour.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“It’s easy to laugh at the moral panics of bygone eras but also worth remembering that someday, someone will be laughing at ours and making serious history programmes about them too.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

The Supervet, Channel 4

“It’s wonderful technology, letting Fitzpatrick and his team work at almost science-fictional speed. Rather more on that, and less of the plodding narration and somewhat predatory tear-jerking, might not have gone amiss.”
Tim Martin, The Telegraph

“Serious shows about animal health demand a difficult balance: too many shots of Meccano-like components on laptop screens can be frustrating, especially when we’ve just glimpsed a labrador in a diamante collar in reception. Never mind the miracles, you think — who wants their pooch to look like Coleen Rooney on a hen night?”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Fitzpatrick’s running commentary during the operation was aided by an Irishman’s reluctance to lose anything in the telling while remaining at all times reassuring.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“How much does Archie’s bionic leg cost? That’s what I want to know. And why stop at the leg, why not rebuild a whole new Archie, with super powers, the Six Million Dollar Dog. I’d watch that.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

Full Steam Ahead, BBC2

“I instantly warmed to the mini documentary series Full Steam Ahead because not only doesn’t the introduction compare the railways to the internet, it says the railways were nothing like the internet.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

“I like Ruth Goodman, she’s always in these shows, anything that involves dressing up in olden-days clothes. I think Ruth should really have been born into the olden days; she even speaks like someone from the past.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

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