ITV’s Love Island , where gorgeous singletons compete to find love, was the surprise reality hit of the last decade. Format sales tipped £1billion for ITV as the show was replicated all over the globe. It won the BAFTA for best reality show in 2018 and had done the unthinkable attracted back to appointment-to-view television the elusive 16-34 demographic.

It was noted in the previous post, that the underlying plotline structuring Sam Esmail’s Mr. Robot bears a notable resemblance to David Fincher’s Fight Club (1999). Certainly, the comparison has been duly noted and even openly acknowledged by Esmail, with the film serving as inspiration for the series (Sullivan, 2015). In the case of seasons 1 and 2, this inspiration fuels Elliot and fsociety’s attempts to erase the commercial

“It’s all about paying homage,” remarks Oliver at the end of my favourite novel, Oliver’s Travels (1994), “Hearing what the ghosts are saying.” This blissful romantic thriller about national corruption pays homage to many people – from Jimmy James to Ludwig van Beethoven, from Lester Young to the stone masons who build Durham Cathedral, from George Farquhar to Magnus the Martyr.

Last week I provided the first half of an interview I conducted with the late Tony Garnett back in 2010 as part of the research for my PhD thesis. Here is the second and final instalment, in which he discusses soap, the virtues of working with non-actors, and Ricky Gervais… RH: You know Jonathan Bignell at Reading University? TG: Yes, I know Jonathan.

The Norwegian public service broadcaster NRK just premiered the longest slow TV broadcast ever with Svalbard Minute by Minute documenting a nine-day Arctic expedition. Next week the Swedish public service broadcaster SVT will try to convince children that slow TV is also for them with two weeks of live broadcasting from 6.30am to 8pm from a Swedish farm.

It was only last week that I heard of the recent passing of Tony Garnett, who will need no introduction for anyone on nodding terms with British television history. Back in October 2010 I was fortunate enough to interview Tony at his home in London while conducting research for my PhD. I was investigating changes in UK television performance style, and he had worked for some time as an actor before becoming a script editor and producer.

“A room without books is like a body without a soul,” remarked the first century AD Roman philosopher Cicero.  Well, apparently anyway.  He was anti-embezzlement – a good thing – and I’m sure he loved his books too.

Premiering in May 2015, Sam Esmail’s Mr. Robot (USA Network), tells the story of a cybersecurity engineer/computer hacker, who is recruited by a cyber-anarchist movement called ‘fsociety’. The movement’s mission: to eradicate all consumer debt through destroying the data records held by the fictional conglomerate, ‘E Corp’. Over the course of the series, we follow the show’s protagonist, Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek), who, as we learn,

The current outbreak of Coronavirus is certainly scary, and very serious for those affected by it. But thank goodness it is not, so far, anything like as apocalyptic as the global pandemic that formed the premise for Survivors (BBC 1975-7). In it, the Welsh science fiction screenwriter Terry Nation imagined an accidental spillage of a new strain of a flu-like virus in a Chinese laboratory.

Gosh – aren’t there a lot of books about Doctor Who (1963-1989, 1996, 2005-)? Admittedly, that’s a thought which I had recently when standing looking at a wall in Galaxy 4, a shop in Sheffield that for 26 years has been specialising in the sale of Doctor Who -related merchandise to the world in general and my wife and myself in particular, but, nevertheless, you suddenly realise how the sheer volume of volumes – even for a