Cause of Death; The Elon Musk Show; Gangs of London; Chapelwaite

“This punctilious and admirably unprurient documentary is the first to take the viewer inside the working world of the coroner, tracking the process from the moment a body arrives at the mortuary to the inquest. In a strange way this series may help to correct people’s perspective of death, what the anatomical pathology technician Danielle Lucas, working in the mortuary, called our taboo around it. When her daughter asks what she does, Lucas tells her she is a nurse for people who are never going to get better. That’s one way of putting it.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“It is a respectful and unsensational series, offering a window into a process that usually takes place behind closed doors. It never ceases to astonish me how accommodating people can be, at the most distressing time of their lives, to the presence of television cameras. I suppose it’s testament to how sensitively the production crews approach their subjects. While the investigations were interesting, it was these personal touches which ensured that the stories transcended a coroner’s report.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“Episode two of The Elon Musk Show was better than the first. Musk emerged as a somewhat miraculous being, not because of his ‘alien-like’ intelligence or vast fortune but because he told of his violent childhood at the hands of his father and school bullies who almost killed him. Yet he survived not only to become the world’s richest man but a quite nice, relatively well-adjusted one.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“Elon Musk is a genius. We know, because the Beeb’s adulatory three-part life story of the Tesla billionaire tells us so every minute. Rocket scientists, company execs, ex-wives, parents, journalists and old friends queue up to repeat the mantra: Elon is the most brilliant human being ever. In case we’re sceptical, archive clips show Musk himself frequently affirming that he is a visionary, while warning of the burden such supernatural intellect confers.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“This is a shoot-em-up extravaganza, pure and simple. It’s ludicrous but lavishly well done, if you like this sort of thing. But while stylish and self-assured, Gangs of Londonalso feels simple-minded and clichéd.”
Gerard Gilbert, The i

“It’s … fine. Adrian Brody is all furrowed brow and pained rasp as the beleaguered Charles and Emily Hampshire as college graduate and woman with a pressing deadline to file a short story with the Atlantic Monthly Rebecca Morgan has little to do but yomp about energetically in an attractive yet practical gown. The only genuine horror comes at the very top of the show. For the rest of the hour, Chapelwaite gets by on atmospherics alone.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian