Emily Baker

The Diplomat is pacy, involving and surprisingly charming.

Just like Sex/Life before it, this is just another feeble attempt to appeal to our most base instincts and failing to deliver on a climax.

It’s a messy, brilliant, sharp drama with buckets of pathos and plenty of laughs to lighten the mood. Don’t miss it.

That You manages to offer a serious critique of society’s readiness to forgive violent men while also being incredibly entertaining is a marvel.

It might be a nice show, but it still has bite. In the second season, the jokes come rapidly and are as elaborate as a fake Dragon’s Den competition or as subtle as a well-timed eyeroll. As far as I’m concerned, it’s those blink-and-you’ll-miss-it gags that bring about the biggest laughs.

With a better script, a looser concept and fewer episodes, Daisy Jones and The Six could have been something really special. In its worst moments, however, it’s a banal, thin love story without enough grit or cool laissez-faire to emulate what makes seventies rock bands so fascinating. Unlike many rockstars of the era, I’m glad there won’t be a reunion tour.

Am I Being Unreasonable? is far from bad TV. I just wish it had been given more time to tell a complete story, with a perceptible middle, beginning and end. I hope three series down the line, I’m eating my words.

Ritchie is excellent as the cold, biting art dealer – the move away from British sitcoms suits her – while Joe’s uncharacteristic vulnerability gives Badgley’s sinister voice-over a new edge. Both elevate middling material to a level of maturity the story doesn’t always demand, turning what could be one of the most unwatchable series on TV to one of the most gripping.

You have to keep watching simply to know where Banerjee ends up. Chippendales is a moreish junk-food binge and as enjoyable as it is at the time, it will leave you feeling a little bit grubby.

Poignant, violent, joyous and exhilarating all at once, this isn’t just another remake, it’s a well-deserved tribute.

Narratively, Emily in Paris is a dud, taking us to a dead-end in a purple McLaren. But it looks pretty and there are standout moments (sometimes for the wrong reasons: Mindy’s take on a performance suitable for a small, historic jazz club is truly something to behold). But Emily in Paris has lost its magic.

Harry & Meghan, more than a piece of entertainment — and it is, as a whole, very entertaining — is an act of self-preservation for the couple, of committing their own story to public record, knowing full well that the palace will not (or cannot) respond. Is it vengeful? A little, but given the strife Harry has been through, it’s impossible not to sympathise with his want to speak his own truth.

The entire series is buoyed by its performances. ... But it’s Levieva’s Marina who steals the show, despite being criminally underused, only coming to the fore in the final episode as she demands a public enquiry from the British Government. Litvinenko is far from dull, but that’s less down to the crafting of the series and more due to the riveting story it is telling.

With its fresh-feeling premise, fleshed out characters, and just enough twists to deliver escapism without compromising believability, The Control Room has all the ingredients to emerge as one of the year’s standout dramas.

At times, Beckham’s inspirational speeches venture so far into cliché that you half expect Mickey Mouse to pop up in his PE kit. But who can blame him for wanting to bring some joy into the world? I couldn’t wipe my own cheesy grin off my face.

The first three episodes, released this Friday, are by no means bad TV. For the most part, the characters are complex, the story is interesting and, if you haven’t read the book, sometimes unexpected. But there are plenty more nuanced, modern takes on adventure stories based in India — the BBC’s A Suitable Boy is a good place to start.

The strands are convoluted and little appears to make much sense – there is rather a lot of trust required of the viewer that master TV showrunner Moffat will pull the whole thing off. Thanks to wonderful performances from its four main players, and particularly to Tucci at last back in a creepy, sinister role after a long stretch of playing loveable characters (and stretching pasta in Italian farmhouses), it is watchable enough for me to commit to the next three episodes to find out if he can.

Here, we have 10 hour-long episodes, each of which meander along to an exciting, often scary, cliffhanger only for the momentum to drop by the next instalment.

Andor is more mature than its peers. It’s closest in tone to The Mandalorian, but without the gimmicks akin to Baby Yoda, and it has none of the unnecessary fan service that dragged down the otherwise brilliant Obi-Wan Kenobi.

There were very few surprises in the results. ... Noel and Matt were delightfully frivolous, Prue was still giddy at the prospect of eating a very boozy cake, and Paul’s “white walker” eyes still stalked the tent like a lioness hunting a gazelle. Bake Off has become a vital part of British culture and anything other than the delightfully twee show we know and love would cause riots in the flour aisles. The last thing Britain needs right now is more change.

The half-hour episodes zip along with such speed and bombastic energy that it’s often hard to keep up with the endless surprises (it would have certainly benefited from hour-long episodes). But as I reached the halfway point of the eight-episode series, I realised I was rooting for Katie and Stefan as if they were my close friends. That is a sign of a good TV show.

Bad Sisters is a brilliantly engaging thriller, with lots of laughs and an unpredictable storyline. While murder is never the answer in the real world, here you won’t be able to stop yourself rooting for whoever you have pegged as the murderer.

It feels thin and inconsequential, with not many laughs to pick up the storytelling slack. So much more could have been done with this character and the premise, it’s simply lazy to opt for a “Fleabag but superheroes” schtick.

A League of Their Own isn’t just another remake. It’s taken its source material and helped it blossom into something much more nuanced and relevant. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you might even learn something about baseball.

Bogged down with a flat script and a formulaic story that moves at a snail’s pace, Mbatha-Raw is left floundering for the few scraps of nuance to be found in her character.

Under the Banner of Heaven is sometimes so intent on conveying a grand message that it forgets to tell its main story. Yet, while the show hinges on a classic whodunnit, its deeper scrutiny of faith and doubt gives Garfield the space to show off his skills. ... But Garfield isn’t the only star here. There’s hardly a weak link in the sprawling cast.

This slapdash approach doesn’t make use of the franchise’s rich 26-year history, nor does it tell a compelling enough story to make it feel fresh. Much like the putrefied flesh of a grotesque zombie, Resident Evil stinks.

Everything I Know About Love isn’t a show to think about too deeply. It’s a joyous, cringeworthy, surface-level celebration of being a twentysomething and all the neuroses and panic that comes along with it. ... It’s a show made for the people it’s about.