Unreality TV was at London’s BFI this afternoon for a screening of the Doctor Who series 7 premiere, Asylum Of The Daleks. Exciting stuff! But let me tell you how a Doctor Who screening traditionally goes: You walk in, become a wee bit star-struck when you see Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and the other one with the awesome hair (more on that later). You bundle into the plush BFI screening room and watch a jaw-dropping hour of television, loaded with spoilers and at the end, Steven Moffat modestly implores everyone present not to ruin the surprise by posting spoilers.

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As fans of ER will know, tonight is the very last time we’ll be entering the doors of County and the last time we’ll get to share in the drama, romance, death, life and everything inbetween of the staff and patients in Chicago’s most famous fictional hospital.

Created by the late author Michael Crichton, ER first aired in 1994 and became the longest-running medical drama in American primetime television history. It won 22 Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Drama Series, and received 123 Emmy nominations, the most of any television show in history… Read more & comment »

Here’s what we recommend you tune into this week, with two of the most major events happening in Coronation Street and EastEnders where there’s a fire and fireworks respectively this week!

Monday

Tonight: How Safe is Your Hospital? is on at 8:00pm on ITV1 during which Morland Sanders looks at recent hospital scandals, including Stafford Hospital – where up to 1200 people may have died unnecessarily – and Birmingham Children’s Hospital where a lack of equipment and trained staff has put patients lives at risk, and asks why regulators failed to recognise the problems earlier… Read more & comment »

It’s been six months since series one ended and in last night’s season two premiere, we discovered that Tripp and Patrick are still estranged – but Nick’s been brought in to help reconcile the two – and Simon and Karen have “escalated” their relationship, but the mysterious Nola Lyons could throw everything into turmoil and the ‘de-frocked’ Brian wants to get closer to his illegitimate son.

It was great to see Peter Krause on screen again as Nick; I absolutely loved him as Nate in Six Feet Under and I couldn’t quite help waiting for one of his SFU daydreams or talks-with-the-dead to happen, but alas, neither did… Read more & comment »

Well it’s difficult to know how to best describe this episode of Red Riding – which was the first if Channel 4’s three, two-hour long adaptations from the novels of David Peace – in words other than brilliant, perfect and awe-inspiring.

It is truly rare that a drama of this quality comes along, and when those of us who are paid to be TV critics cannot criticise even a minor pedantic detail – or at least, this one can’t anyway – it’s a rare day… Red Riding: 1974, was simply faultless.

Mind you, with a cast that boasted Andrew Garfield – in his first role on Channel 4 since his Bafta-winning performance in ‘Boy A’ – and other cast members of an equally celebrated and deservedly A list stature, it would’ve taken some seriously poor direction and/or writing to make it anything less than amazing, and praise be, neither applied… Read more & comment »

Well I hope you all made the most of last night’s ER because that episode and next week’s will be the last of the Christmases in County’s ER!

In case you missed it, in last night’s episode, as often happens in windy, cold Chicago, a snowstorm left a trail of devastation and injuries in its wake but the ER had to do without Morris and Banfield who got stranded in Omaha so ended up doing a spot of bonding over a drink or ten… Read more & comment »

As you’ve probably heard, the Chief of ITV, Michael Grade, announced yesterday that more than 600 jobs would be cut across the ITV owned network and group of companies. He also announced that following a 41% drop in revenue from advertising, the company had to make radical cutbacks.

Mr Grade was quoted in The Sun yesterday as saying, “Current conditions in the advertising market are the most challenging I have experienced in over 30 years in UK broadcasting.

“This is reflected both in our financial results for 2008 and the tough actions we are announcing today”.

Apparently a large part of ITV’s planned savings will be via cuts to its £1 billion programming budget, which will be reduced by £65 million during this year… Read more & comment »

On Monday, Zak has a bad feeling about the scheme they’ve got planned when Marlon and Eli turn up dressed as a vicar and chef respectively. While the two brothers go into the hospital to look around, Zak and Shadrach wait nervously in the van. Zak shows Shadrach that he’s brought a gun, insisting they’ll do whatever it takes if the main plan fails… Read more & comment »

At 9pm on BBC2 tonight, Matt Smith and Shaun Parkes star in this thrilling new drama that’s set in the heart of London, so if you want to see how the new Doctor measures up, now’s your chance to judge Matt Smith before he steps into the Tardis!

The story of Moses Jones is told over three one-hour episodes which begin when a wave of violence hits London following the discovery of the bizarrely mutilated body of a man in the Thames. First appearances suggest a witchcraft killing, but the dark reality is more complicated – and even more frightening… Read more & comment »

This morning, I read a review of this drama as written by Andrew Billen in The Times Online, and with disbelief, I read this… “Yet to have been truly effective, either as drama of propaganda, it should have moved the viewer, and it didn’t me, or not very much.”

I’m assuming he meant “… as drama or propaganda” but typo aside, I can only assume Mr Billen is an automaton or an opponent of the right to choose to die. How anyone can have failed to have been moved by either the real story or this sensitive but faithful reconstruction of it is beyond me… Read more & comment »

Hugh Bonneville and Janet McTeer starred in last night’s first episode of this new two-part drama from the BBC which, overall, was intriguing, full of ‘twists’ and suitably dramatic, but nonetheless I felt lacked something… but I can’t quite say what.

Maybe it was that I kept expecting Hugh to say something funny or because I couldn’t quite buy into a lot of the supporting cast, or perhaps it was the nature of the abduction premise. Pro-lifers who threaten to kill seemed something of a contradiction in terms, until you understand their reasoning which seems to be ‘for the greater good, small sacrifices must be made’ or words to that effect. Read more & comment »

It’s looking like a great week’s viewing is coming our way so here’s Primetime’s picks of what to stay in for.

We kick off with the second part of Unforgiven on Monday at 9pm, ITV1.

This show got off to a really strong start last week and if you missed it, it’s well worth catching up on ITV’s player so that you aren’t out of the loop tomorrow night.

Suranne Jones is excellent in this role and this week, her character’s problems intensify as she struggles to keep hold of her new relationship and continues to search for her sister.

Another show that looks pretty interesting is Born Survivors – My 22 Stone Dad and Skinny Me which is also on tomorrow on BBC3 at 10:30pm.. Read more & comment »

Last night saw the start of ITV’s new three-part drama Unforgiven, starring Suranne Jones as Ruth Slater, a role that was specifically written for her by Sally Wainwright.

Suranne turned in an amazing performance, as did the rest of the cast which contained some of my favourite actors such as Peter Davison, Siobhan Finneran and Jack Deam who plays stuttering Marty in Shameless. Read more & comment »

On Monday, Denise is worried about seeing Lucas again so she asks Chelsea and Libby to go out so she can make the day special. However, Chelsea’s worried that her mum will mess things up with Lucas like she’s done before, while Libby just wants Denise to be happy. Denise loses her temper with Chelsea over it so while Chelsea’s at the Minute Mart, she asks Patrick to have a word with Denise instead… Read more & comment »

On Monday in the 7:30pm episode, it’s finally the day of Molly and Tyrone’s wedding and everyone’s feeling the strain. Molly won’t let Pam leave her side because she’s so nervous and she’s oblivious to Pam’s unease about getting Tyrone involved in her latest scam.

Tyrone meanwhile isn’t having a good day; first, he gets a call from the dove agency to say the doves have had a nasty accident and then the harpist gets stuck in a traffic jam. But these hitches seem minor when he turns up for the handover of the sunglasses – only to find he’s face to face with a copper… Read more & comment »