Monday, July 4, 2011

TV highlights 04/07/2011

Landlords From Hell: Dispatches | New Tricks | Sirens | The Ball's In Our Court | Britain And Ireland's Next Top Model | Dirty, Sexy Things

Landlords From Hell: Dispatches
8pm, Channel 4

However unscrupulous or otherwise 1960s landlord Peter Rachman actually was, he left the world, and the OED, a convenient synonym. Tonight Jon Snow and the team discover Rachmanism is alive and kicking in 21st-century Britain, during an undercover investigation into slum properties and slum landlords. In London, one covert reporter pays a rogue landlord �40 a week to doss down in an illegal, fetid shed, while bullying and forced evictions are everywhere. Ali Catterall

New Tricks
9pm, BBC1

The ageing Peelers return to tackle more old cases that were clearly investigated by idiots or children the first time round. Tonight it's the suspicious death of a man called Bernard in a museum. Could it be person unknown, with the dinosaur bone in the cretaceous room? This episode is enlivened by Getting On's Vicki Pepperdine as a blue-stocking palaeontologist but otherwise consists of James Bolam (like ET with a garage forecourt air-hose in his mouth) being mild-mannered, Amanda Redman arching her eyebrow and Dennis Waterman singing the feem-tune. Julia Raeside

Sirens
10pm, Channel 4

The second episode of Brian Fillis's comedy-drama set among Leeds paramedics is really finding its rhythm. Stuart's thus-far platonic relationship with police sergeant Maxine is the most intriguing of the series but this week, he finds himself dating a student and facing stress-related underperformance problems under the duvet. With a studiously mixed cast of characters (gay, Muslim, female, bloke), all doing serious jobs, Sirens successfully gets away with a lot of boisterous laddishness. David Stubbs

The Ball's In Our Court
9pm, Blighty

A new series that looks at how Britain has invented many of today's popular ? not to mention lucrative ? competitive games. Lawn tennis, which has roots in the ancient game of royal tennis that was played indoors, was popularised in the late-19th century with rules and competitions (the first Wimbledon men's final in 1877 drew 200 spectators). We also learn about the emergence of boxing from a rowdy men's pastime into a formal contest, that curling is more than 500 years old, and how motorcycle racing evolved as a sport, with the world's first motorcycle racing club forming in 1909 at Brooklands in Surrey. Martin Skegg

Britain And Ireland's Next
Top Model
9pm, Sky Living

Having presumably exhausted the British pool of potential models, Next Top Model's seventh series expands its remit to Ireland, too. There are more changes in the shape of a new X Factor-style format, which visits cities around the UK (it even has its own boot camp), though it's a safe bet to assume that the drama is as forward as the fashion. Host Elle Macpherson is back on duty, as are judges Julien Macdonald and stylist Grace Woodward. Rebecca Nicholson

Dirty Sexy Things
10pm, E4

Perou is a cretin with a personalised number plate. "I am Perou the photographer and therefore I take photographs," he says, without irony. He wants eight models to take pictures of, but be assured it is his toughest challenge yet. They must typify those who work "at the front line of fashion". At the casting, no one knows why they are there, the aim of the project is vague but everyone is very excited. First assignment is an outdoor underwear shoot. The most incredibly banal, idiotic, pointless waste of vital organs in the history of broadcasting. No contest. Julia Raeside


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/jul/03/landlords-from-hell-dispatches

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