The hit television comedy Absolutely Fabulous is set to hit the big screen as a movie (July 1 ^st 2016), and as such it is worth considering the hype, the paratexts, and the anticipation that surrounds this venture.

It is quite a joy to discover one of your personal fetishes on the internet. Indeed, I was beginning to feel that I was the only one with a dark, long-term fascination in sitcom studio floorplans, but in recent years there have been one or two articles that have started referencing similar fascinations.

For his portrayal of Jack Donaghy, GE Vice President of East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming, in NBC sitcom 30 Rock (2006-2013), Alec Baldwin has won a (to use the technical term) smorgasbord of accolades, including two Primetime Emmys, three Golden Globes and seven Screen Actors Guild Awards. In our view, he would pretty much deserve this acclaim on the strength of his work in the episode ‘Jack-Tor’ (1.5) alone.

At some point during the first episode of Judd Apatow’s new Netflix series Love – co-written and co-produced with Paul Rust and Lesley Arfin – the show lost me: or rather, to be more precise, it irritated me, because in fact, it didn’t lose me at all.

It might still seem strange, after all these years, to say that Horace and Pete is television, since it is not available, at the moment, from any network, cable provider or software application. To see it one has to pay for each episode and download it from Louis C. K.’s website. But it is clearly a television show.

I passed my viva! Hurrah! Good, now that’s out of the way, let’s talk about Channel 4 Comedy commission Catastrophe , which is currently airing its second series, less than a year after its first went out in January of 2015. And let’s also get something else out of the way: the total agreement I am in with the majority of TV critics about its being utterly brilliant. Good. That’s done too.

Sometimes, things coincide to throw a particular interesting light on an issue that needs raising. This week, for me, these things were the continued discussion in Europe (including the UK) about the sex attacks in Cologne on New Year’s Eve, an article on the hidden rise of violence against women and, the return of Tracey Ullman’s Show.

I’ll always remember my initial reaction the first time I watched Absolutely Fabulous (BBC, 1992-2012). Edina Monsoon (played by co-creator Jennifer Saunders) and Patsy Stone (played by former model and co-star Joanna Lumley) appeared to be the rudest, crudest and strangest women I ever saw on television.

In our last blog post, we examined the acting by a female performer in a strong ensemble cast – Jennifer Aniston in Friends (NBC, 1994-2004) – and today we will do the same again.

The first episode of EastEnders was broadcast on BBC1 on 19 February 1985. Created by Tony Holland and Julia Smith, the serial is set in the fictional London borough of Walford. It is shot on a purpose-built outside set at Elstree Studios and also interior television studios on the site. The task of the first episode of any soap is to introduce location, characters and storylines, and to set a tone for the drama.