Lucy Mangan

Wreck has got charm, it’s got a little bit of wit, it’s got youthful exuberance and energy, and even if it never develops much more than that (only one episode was available for review at time of writing), it will justify its place in the schedules.

[Harrison Ford's] dry delivery of Paul’s acerbic one-liners and verdicts on his younger colleagues’ antics provides a much-needed counterpoint to the schmaltz that often threatens to overwhelm, and his gravitas grounds a show whose fluffy pieces could otherwise easily float away.

Extraordinary is fun but does begin to feel, once the initial playfulness of the premise has worn off, underbaked. ... But it’s got just enough heart and good, unexpected one-liners (under the spell of a job interviewer who can make people tell the truth, Jen admits “I’m sitting funny ’cause my tampon’s falling out”) to keep you coming back for more and to mark 28-year-old debut writer Emma Moran as one to watch.

The makers have obviously worked under a laminated sign saying “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, and who can blame them? The same character traits are all there, if redistributed among the youngsters’ parts.

There is less Willow (Renika Williams), so far, than last time, which is a great sadness. But the rest are all present, correct and adding to the general sense of a show bursting with good things: talent, energy and wit to burn.

The sleaze, glamour and general air of excess that hung about the 80s is nicely captured, and all eight episodes can be easily binged. But you do long for some depth, some nuance, and perhaps an actor less fundamentally gentle than Kumail Nanjiani, who might have captured more convincingly the darkness lurking in Banerjee’s soul.

It’s a modern take on an old narrative form, and if there’s nothing as earthshaking dramatically speaking as whatever the Big Bad is managing as it comes for our crew, the need to know what’s what – including Glen’s Secret Sorrow and the role Mark Addy, who has yet to turn up unless I’ve failed to spot him under all the safety gear, is going to play – and the faith that it won’t all descend into a Lost-style debacle will keep you going until the end.

The warp and weft of lives, of life, is as expertly woven as ever and you couldn’t wish for a better group of actors to bring it to you. Happy new year.

This shouldn’t have been a rush job. There has been the opportunity to work on the story of his life and his death and transmute it – especially in a time when dictatorial regimes, violence and governmental lawlessness are in the ascendant – into something better, broader, more meaningful than this.

This latest offering from the crack team and Sir David accomplishes its goal as effectively as ever; it makes us, in the best way, children again. You cannot stay unengaged, you cannot remain unmoved by the sight of nature in all her glory, or unawed by the sight of creatures honed by countless years of evolution to survive the apparently unsurvivable.

Do you miss noise and bombast? Do you miss goodhearted, mindless entertainment? Do you miss the 80s? The 90s? Well, take heart, my friends, because they’re all back, courtesy of the new Disney+ series National Treasure: Edge of History.

In the end – what are we left with? Exactly the same story we always knew, told in the way we would expect to hear it from the people who are telling it.

It is as gripping, fun and stylish as the acclaimed Giri/Haji, without quite its narrative innovation. But it is stuffed with good performances, knotty problems and is compelling enough to keep even those of us who, much as we may wish otherwise, don’t quite understand what’s going on coming back for more.

The drama does a good job of making the victims – Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth, Jack Taylor (portrayed with depth, vigour and sweetness by Tim Preston, Jakub Svec, Leo Flanagan and Paddy Rowan, respectively) – live again. ... Beyond that, and despite the usual great work of Sheridan Smith (as Anthony’s mother, Sarah) and others, the drama never catches fire.

An astoundingly tough, vigorous, sinewy thing without a wasted word or moment. Freeman – who must have fallen on it like a hungry dog – does every bit of it justice. ... The Responder is as fast and riveting as a thriller and as harrowing as a documentary.

It is not a series designed to dig deep into these issues, but it is rare that they are even touched upon as part of a grand sweep such as Planet Sex, and along with Delevingne’s unexpectedly strong presenting skills and directness, it lifted the whole. I love this for us.

It’s a perfectly serviceable script and the two leads – newcomer Jemma Carlton as Carr and Line of Duty’s Scott Reid as Huntley – wring every bit of truth and nuance out of it that they can. ... Virtually all other characters are banished to the periphery. The police investigating the case are no more than ciphers, and Jane (Natalie Britton), the brash London journalist, is there to do no more than enable an underbaked exploration of press freedom and journalistic responsibility.

It’s a thriller that takes a tremendous, hooky premise, then builds around it with loving detail – instead of considering that its work is largely done and relying on the audience’s basic need for resolution to keep them watching.

On its own terms it’s an absolute triumph. Warm, witty and accessible, with the factual sections and their fictionalised counterparts twining supportively round each other rather than cancelling each other out or annoying alternate halves of the viewership.

It loses something by not setting Wednesday against normality, as the films did, and by having a more fissured version of the Addams clan. The love and unity of the family against the world was always one of the great pleasures, in whatever incarnation you met them. But it has enough wit, charm and propulsive energy for that not to matter as much as it might have.

As television, it’s absolute gubbins – and very gentle documentary-making indeed. A David and Goliath case in which Goliath has just as reasonable an argument as David and the moral stakes are so low as to be negligible is not the stuff of legend, even if it is of case law. But if you’re up for the viewing equivalent of a can of sweet fizz and empty calories, this will slip down just fine.

If you are suffering from a tension pneumothorax yourself and can’t reach the remote control, or if you are a great devotee of the game Who’s Marked Next For Death?, it’s an OK watch. For the rest of us, there’s lots of other stuff to be getting on with, I’ll bet.

It knows exactly what it has to work with and doesn’t threaten to frighten anyone with innovative tricks or boundary-pushing.

Blick’s script is as spare and gorgeous as the landscape. If he could have spent some of the time afforded the plot machinations on interrogating more intensively the myths of the Old West, the colonial impulse, the difference between retribution and justice and the other questions his western raises, the ambition that is everywhere in it would have been even more gloriously realised. But it remains a sweepingly wonderful thing.

As a concept, it is shamelessly cynical and manipulative. ... Despite these constraints (and the fact that Beckham is that rare case of a preternaturally good-looking superstar without the charisma to carry a programme), Save Our Squad survives and thrives. This is partly because when Beckham is properly in and among them while they are training, the artifice falls away.

For all that it is about love, sex and the deceits that come with it, this Dangerous Liaisons resists becoming encumbered by any deeper messages about the damage people are willing to do to each other to get ahead. It’s about watching Camille learn the manipulative ropes from a mistress of them and seeing how far she can get on her wits alone.

It’s great fun. Its many, many pieces – which if they gel will make it a great show in all sorts of other ways – are currently held together by Raine’s absolutely storming performance.

As rich, complex and satisfying a comedy-drama as you could hope. Enjoy another five-star stay in this luxury place.