Lucy Mangan

Trusting it fully would be a mistake, but there’s something invigorating about a drama that never apologises and knows no shame. Let it in and surrender.

A fantastic supporting cast and a dense, lean, evocative script make this television for grownups, television to pay attention to and to entertain you enormously.

I suppose I would have to look back at my first documentary-drama presented by a born actor and profess myself entertained but exhausted by the constant prospect of the whole teetering thing collapsing into utter humiliation for all involved. But if I were younger, less cynical, a nicer person in any way, I would have loved it and it would have got me a bit more interested in the ancient world.

The Five-Star Weekend is not a five-star show, but it is the pleasantest three-star time you could wish for.

It’s the perimenopausal comedy thriller caper of your dreams, but one that everyone can enjoy.

It is exactly the revamp you would expect. The new LHOTP is a precision-tooled and well-oiled machine. All children’s and most adult problems are solvable within a one-to-three episode arc.

Elle has enough charm to get by. In a world that needs all the harmless escapism it can get, Elle gets the job done. But it could, given its pedigree and its writing at the peaks, have been so much more.

This is filler television, doing nothing more than reminding us that bad people exist and that they can cross our paths at any time. It doesn’t interrogate the possible roles played by extraneous factors, just invites us to goggle and point and whisper.

Life, Larry and … is seven half-hour episodes in search of a punchline.

By the end of episode two you can feel that The American Experiment is doing you mental and moral good.