James Walton

Riveting and heart-wrenching: BBC1’s Time reviewed

Plus: the scenery really does play a blinder in BBC1's Shetland

A heart-wrenchingly effective portrait of life in a female prison: BBC1’s new season of Time. Credit: BBC Studios/Sally Mais

‘Only with women’ is a phrase used by more cynical TV types for a show that takes something that’s been done before with men, but by changing the gender of the characters can pose as ground-breaking. It sprang to mind this week when both of BBC1’s big new dramas unblushingly took the only-with-women approach; the problem for the cynics being that the programmes themselves are rather good.

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