TV Shows and Comedy
While Crime Scene Investigation has a lot of Las Vegas corruption and third spin-off CSI: New York has the bubbling tensions of a major international city, CSI: Miami's seventh season continues its own trend of setting graphic murders to a backdrop...
Crime Scene Investigation has taken the simple premise of solving murder cases based on forensic evidence and spun it into a lucrative and incredibly popular franchise. From the beginnings is Las Vegas back in 2000, series set in Miami and New York...
Once Ross Noble gets started, there’s no stopping him. His style of spontaneous stand—up sees him hyperactively prancing around the stage while making observations about his audience which take him on all manner of tangents with hardly a pause for...
There may be no plans to make that final post Darth Vader trilogy of Star Wars movies George Lucas used to talk about in the 1990s along with the prequels he eventually brought to the big screen, but he is still keen to keep producing stories about...
Once a legendary trilogy of movies, the Star Wars universe has been increasingly expanded in recent years by creator George Lucas with varied results. His prequels failed to live up to their predecessors while The Clone Wars period of his tale was...
Superheroes get super silly in Frisky Dingo, a cartoon soap opera which sees those fighting for justice and those seeking world domination placed in situations normally unseen in the classic comic book characters we all know and love. This animated...
Once a Guinness World Record holder for the number of jokes told in an hour, an impressive 499, Tim Vine’s comedy is an acquired taste. But if you enjoy endless puns delivered with relentless enthusiasm, then So I Said To This Bloke ... is a fine...
Kids' toys get rude in Rick & Steve, an adult animated series about the fictional gay ghetto of West Lahunga Beach. Aiming for a South Park-style tone of humour cutting as close to the bone as possible, it's got that childish look which at first...
When Mitch Hedberg died in 2005, the US lost one of its most distinctive stand-up comics. With a surreal, observational style and an abrupt speech pattern recalling the Fonz at his most dictatorial, the ironically shy Hedberg, who suffered from...
Missing Buffy? If, like me, you were a big fan of the Buffster, you could do worse than check out Blood Ties, a new and slightly more adult supernatural crime...
A weed-dealing single mother living in sunny American suburbs may not sound like the most obvious choice for the setting of a hilarious comedy series, yet Weeds is possibly as addictive as the green plant itself. The second season sees Nancy Botwin...
For many, Ardal O’Hanlon will always be Father Dougal Maguire. And it was the naïve nature of the Irishman’s stand–up that convinced Father Ted writers Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan to cast him as their young curate beset by juvenile...
Since winning a cult following at the 2002 Edinburgh Fringe and earning a Perrier nomination the following year, Flight of the Conchords – “formerly New Zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo" – have...
If Harry Potter grew up with aspirations to be like Buffy the Vampire Slayer he might become Harry Dresden, a wizard battling rivals and monsters while helping police crime scene investigator Connie Murphy solve cases. Based on bestselling...
Green Wing is a show that permanently walks a tightrope between genius and irritating. The surreal hospital-set sitcom lays on the visual ticks and bewildering diversions so thick and fast that it can become a little wearing after a while....
It sometimes seems as if Peter Kay is a victim of his own success. In recent years he has been responsible for creating some of the funniest characters on British television for a long time, yet the repetition of his material by every Tom, Dick and...
Panel ‘game shows’ are odd television programmes, with their pre-planned mix of comedy and questions often being little more than a chance for the comic talent to show off; scores are normally a minor issue to be mentioned in passing. Yet they can...
The return of the exemplary flatshare sitcom sees the show at the peak of its powers. With the possible exception of The Office, no other British sitcom has been so hilarious, edgy and relevant to life in the ‘Noughties’ (as nobody calls them)....
The chances are you’ll be drawn to 21 Jump Street because of the picture of Johnny Depp on the front cover. But if you’re buying it so as to see how the great man learnt his trade, I'm afraid you’re going to be in for a big disappointment....
The presidency of Josiah Bartlett is coming to an end
and there’s an election to be fought. The final season
of undoubtedly one of the finest television programmes
of all time charts the battle...
For anyone who has never seen That 70's Show, where have you been?! is NOT what I'm going to ask you, as as far as I know the show has never been given a prime time slot on terrestrial television in the UK (though I have caught episodes on Five as...
I don’t really know what I can tell you about this. You know the drill. You know the characters. Hell, even Saddam Hussein is probably familiar with Comic Book Guy or shoddy lawyer Lionel Hutz. In fact, I think he’s hired him for his defence when...
I would have to be a mighty brave critic to claim that the remake of Battlestar Galactica is better than Star Wars. I now fear the possibility of an angry mob of fan boys burning photos of me along with Battlestar Galactica DVD’s in the street....
