PBS
Funny Woman’s second season is burning through plot like a bunch of raked-up autumnal leaves. A four-episode season means that where we’d be at the midpoint of a season with six episodes, we’re already in penultimate episode territory, often where the big turning points of
PBS
Sophie Straw (née Barbara Parker and played by Gemma Arterton) just wants to exercise her judgment in both professional and personal matters. Why is that so hard? That’s rhetorical; I know why it’s hard: there would be no TV show without this central conflict and journey, and it
PBS
Out of all the British series coming to American shores in 2025, the return of Wolf Hall to PBS, a decade after the series initially debuted, might be the most anticipated. The original series covered the two books released by Hilary Mantel at the time, Wolf Hall and Bringing Up
PBS
Despite the awkwardness of the series name, critics and reviewers loved Gemma Arterton's first season of Funny Woman. (So-called because it's adapted from the Nick Hornsby novel Funny Girl, a title already taken by a rather famous musical.) However, viewers, assuming the title was a
Feature
In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Nineteen, Prince Andrew, Duke of York, second son of Queen Elizabeth II, gave a damning interview to the BBC’s Emily Maitlis about his friendship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In the spring of 2024, Netflix gave us Scoop, a feature-length
PBS
PBS' newest addition to the period drama lineup, Funny Woman (based on the novel Funny Girl by Nick Hornby, with the title altered for obvious reasons), was commissioned for a Season 2 by producer Sky around the same time it landed an American distributor. As luck would have it,
BritBox
BritBox’s intelligent, playful series McDonald & Dodds challenges and intrigues, thanks to its two titular characters, DCI Lauren McDonald (Tala Gouveia) and DS Dodds (Jason Watkins), and Season 4 debuts on BritBox on May 22, with the first of three feature-length episodes written by Robert Murphy. But before
Comedy
Despite what you may have heard, Netflix is not dead. The streaming service is still head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to a subscriber user base, and though the vast majority of its ~60 originals that it churns out every month may be utter junk, it is
Comedy
British TV comedy has a long history and a serious fandom. From Monty Python to Red Dwarf, the mere phrase "British comedy" comes with weighty lineage and a reputation to uphold. Even newer shows like The Office and Fleabag leave long shadows that other series have to fight
That Dirty Black Bag
The rise of prestige TV has mirrored the comeback of genre shows, especially in the wake of the success of Game of Thrones. At first, it was just a spate of British (or British-esque) fantasy series adaptations, from Outlander to His Dark Materials, but as the 2020s go on,
Flesh and Blood
After a year of nearly all-male all-procedural mysteries on PBS, Flesh and Blood has felt like a breath of fresh air. As viewers round into the finale, we still don't know who to suspect or who the victim is. But, as one might imagine, after sitting
Flesh and Blood
In the penultimate installment of Flesh & Blood, the series begins stripping away the stuff that doesn't matter and gives viewers the first glimpse of the night in question. As I noted last week, this is a matter of figuring out which of the storylines are red herrings