2014 in Review: Top TV Shows

I've watched a frightening amount of TV in 2014. And not all of it has been repeats of Friends. 

Continuing my ‘best of 2014’ blog series, here’s a rundown of the best TV I've watched this year. I've limited myself to ten again and it was much harder to choose than I thought. So bad luck to The Walking Dead (which I've left off because its full series hasn't been on this year so it seems a bit unfair), Penny Dreadful and the two documentary series I mention later on who just missed the cut. I'm sure their respective production teams are gutted.

Here, in no particular order, are the lucky ten who made it...

Doctor Who

Peter Capaldi has completely changed my opinion of Doctor Who. Before it was a show I might watch on a Saturday if I was in, with Capaldi in the lead role it’s become must see. His Doctor is perfect for me - brooding, sarcastic, socially awkward and emotionally unavailable. The end of the ridiculous and boring Doctor/companion love stories was particularly welcome. Capaldi aside, I also really got into some of the storylines for the first time in many series too, especially the series closer with the fantastic Michelle Gomez as a basically perfect female incarnation of the Master. More of this please. 

Veep
The third series of Veep saw terminally gaffe prone Vice President Selina secure her party’s nomination for the Presidential election, but suffice it to say the course did not run smooth. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is my home girl and she is outstanding in Veep, but then she has to be because her supporting cast are all equally good (Tony Hale’s put upon PA Gary is a personal favourite). After a slow start, the Armando Iannucci penned series is going from strength to strength. The idea of a Selina Presidential campaign - in a fourth series which also features Hugh Laurie - is just too much.

Game of Thrones

Whilst series four has made some missteps (the Cersei-Jamie rape scene was awful on many levels) Game of Thrones is still one of the best series on TV. The acting is excellent across the board - Peter Dinklage's Tyrion and Pedro Pascal’s Oberyn Martel were my stand outs in season four - it looks stunning and the writing remains top notch. The thing that’s really interesting about Thrones now is how far it’s moving from its source material; every season feels less and less like a book adaptation and more like an original drama. I'm quite excited by this, even as a huge fan of the books, and can’t wait for the next season to start to see where the characters are going.

The Great British Bake Off

If ever proof were needed that Bake Off mania is fully set in, I think this year’s Baked Alaska-gate was it. Personally, all that angsty nonsense annoyed me (though I was Team Iain all the way) as did some of the more tenuously themed weeks but I will always love this show. Pleasing, too, that its move to BBC1 didn't dent anyone’s enthusiasm for some good old fashioned innuendo. I also continue to love the judges’ Masterclass spin off mini-series, mostly because Paul.

Strictly Come Dancing

It’s amazing how much the removal of Bruce Forsyth as host rejuvenated my love of Strictly. Claudia Winkleman is the best replacement too - I absolutely love her. This year’s series has been textbook classic Strictly: the good dancers are excellent, the bad dancers are funny, the boring dancers got voted off first and there have been some genuinely surprising eliminations. Even the themed weeks haven’t been too awful. It’s so great to feel enthusiastic about Strictly again. Long may it continue.

My Shakespeare

The only documentary to make this list (BBC4’s Len Goodman/Lucy Worsely dance history show Cheek to Cheek and BBC2’s three part history of sci fi Tomorrow's World just missed out) My Shakespeare is a Sky Arts series where prominent actors and directors discuss their favourite Shakespeare plays and characters. It’s perfect viewing for me, and just the right side of pretentious! My favourite was Kim Catrall on Antony and Cleopatra, but all of the ones I saw were really good - informative, accessible and interesting.

Boardwalk Empire 

My favourite TV show ever bowed out this year, which makes me sad but also happy that it went out on such a strong season. As ever with this show, the writing, acting (Stephen Graham’s Al Capone was my stand out this year), production and everything else were all fantastic. Although the ending was ultimately a bit predictable - no spoilers though - the series built up to it perfectly and it was the right ending, unlike so many other shows. Still kind of hoping for a Lucky Luciano spinoff...

Remember Me

Even though it trailed off in the final third, this BBC take on a modern ghost story was incredibly effective. Which is to say the first two episodes were fucking terrifying. The thing that got me into this show was the idea of Michael Palin playing not only a straight role but a pretty morally ambiguous one at that and he was completely brilliant at it. Ditto Mark Addy (I’m really enjoying his late career renaissance) as the world weary policeman so desperate to find a rational explanation for everything that was happening. The writing was solid and the Yorkshire scenery looked so beautiful, but the twisty turny plot was the most compelling thing about this show. I’d love to see the BBC do more of this sort of short series drama.

True Detective

A cop show that avoided all the clichés of a cop show, looked beautiful and was phenomenally acted? Yes please. I think this show was probably slightly over hyped, but it was still very, very good. Matthew Mcconaughey (continuing his baffling run of excellent form) and Woody Harrelson were both excellent as the mismatched Detectives forced to work together on a string of dark, ritualistic murder cases. The best thing about this show was the way it eschewed all the usual cop show plot devices, character stereotypes and stock scenes and presented something much more interesting and with far loftier themes. The only disappointment was that they couldn’t continue this into the series finale.

24: Live Another Day

Jack Bauer comes to London and mayhem ensues - what’s not to love? Ok, so there were some issues with the way the show was Anglicised (anything to do with transport for a start), the allusions to Wikileaks were about as subtle as a brick to the face and some of the plot details extremely dubious but it’s 24 and it was so much fun. It also inspired the most brilliantly snarky Guardian episode blog which is still worth a read months after the series has ended. Hopefully the cliffhanger ending - no spoilers - means we haven’t seen the last of Jack just yet.

Review: Brendan Cole - Licence to Thrill

Up close, Brendan Cole has a really nice arse.

I know this because, apparently, in Croydon row C of a theatre is the front row and so it was that I found myself getting an excellent view of Mr Cole and all of his appealing features when I saw his tour Licence to Thrill last week.

Now, I’m going to try really hard to not make this post a straight up Brendan’s tour vs Anton’s tour post but – having seen all six of Anton’s tours and being a devoted Antonette – there’s a certain inevitability that that’s what it will become.

So let’s get one thing out of the way first: I preferred and will always prefer Anton’s 100% ballroom tours. Brendan’s tours incorporate Latin and ballroom dances, with an emphasis on the former, and I just don’t like the Latin as much. It doesn’t matter how well they’re danced or who is dancing them, they just don’t do it for me.

That said, if you do want to see a show that incorporates the full range of the dances you see on Strictly then you could certainly do far worse than checking out LTT. It’s a really fun show with a great party atmosphere and some stand out numbers. You have to wait until Act 2 for all of them, but the cape dance (basically a man only paso doble; much like most of the sports in the winter Olympics, I don’t understand the point but man was it fun to watch), the Dirty Dancing tribute number complete with iconic lift and the mind bendingly fast jive to Footloose that closes the show are all fantastic.

Brendan is a great dancer too and you certainly get more of a sense of his personality – and that he’s enjoying himself – in his dances than you do in Anton’s. My dislike of the genre aside, I love watching his fast Latin on Strictly and it’s even better up close and personal. The ballroom numbers were lovely too, especially the simple and romantic waltz.

His supporting cast, including fellow Strictly pro Aliona Vilani (who I was amazingly un-annoyed by) and Brendan’s older brother Scott amongst others – are generally pretty good too. Music is provided by two singers (female good, male a slightly cringey amalgamation of every Heart FM DJ ever who carries a tune quite nicely) and a decent band, under the direction of a delightfully deadpan musical director/pianist/MC.  

For all the fun of the show, it’s definitely not as polished as Anton’s (sorry, I am trying). There were a number of quite noticeable mistakes in the dancing, my favourite being Scott Cole coming very close to dropping his partner at one point, and the music. It’s always awkward when a trumpeter splits a note so badly during a solo that the sharp intake of breath from the audience is audible. There are also, for my money, a couple of pretty ropey routines. The ‘girls vs boys’ section springs to mind, especially the ‘girls’ portion which consisted of a weird burlesque routine, to the strains of a slowed down version of The Locomotion, with a dollop of lipstick lesbianism thrown in for good measure. I didn’t get it and I never want to see it again. I did want to see more of Brendan though – it felt like there was a lot of reliance on the backing dancers to pad out the show and mask costume changes and if I was a diehard Brendan fan I would probably have been a bit pissed off.

The night I saw the show, though, all of my nitpicking was put to one side as we got a massive treat. Sophie Ellis Bextor was in the audience and turned up in the second act Q&A to dance her amazing Charleston with Brendan. If you thought this was a great routine on TV, it was magical in the flesh. I genuinely feel incredibly lucky to have seen it, and it was lovely to see all of the other dancers watching from the wings with proud big brother Scott recording it on his ipad. It may have only been a few minutes in a two hour show, but it was worth the price of the ticket all on its own.

Licence to Thrill is touring the UK throughout February and March and is certainly worth a look. Try and get front row seats if you appreciate a nice arse.