Remembering Ian ‘Spats’ Picken, Chef extraordinaire

There’s a simultaneous joy and danger to cleaning out drawers and files as, good or bad, you never know what you might run across. In this case, it was pure joy to stumble onto a memory from our time attending the annual BBC Showcase in Brighton from the mid-90s to the mid-2000s. Each year, 500 […]

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Are you ready for Alan Partridge’s primetime return to the BBC? He is!

Almost 20 years removed from a fatal on-air shooting brought about the cancellation of his 1990s chat show Knowing Me, Knowing You, Alan Partridge (a.k.a. Steve Coogan) returns to take on the gig of a lifetime as the (temporary) stand-in co-host of an evening weekday magazine show, This Time, on BBC one. Long recognized in his […]

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Eric Idle discusses the ‘Entire Universe’, Monty Python, PBS and more….

So, who’s up for a bit o’ science, Monty Python-style this Christmas? If you are, then Eric Idle’s Entire Universe will be the perfect PBS Christmas gift to unwrap this holiday season. International Man of Science, Professor Brian Cox, and the comedic greatness of Eric Idle will join forces in what appears to be, on the surface, a scientific […]

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BBC/PBS partner for contemporary newspaper drama — “Press”

I absolutely love this time of year if for no other reason than it’s the annual PBS presentation at the Television Critic’s Association where we learn all kinds of brilliant things that are on the telly horizon. The first bit of news came earlier this week with the BBC/PBS/Lookout Point/Deep Indigo announcement about Press. The 6-part […]

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‘Downton Abbey’ cast share their fantasy series endings….

Many members of the Downton-Nation have not yet come to grips with the notion that, come March 2016, there will be no new episodes of Downton Abbey on the horizon. It seems as though the cast has accepted their fate and are, in fact, dreaming up series endings as they are in the middle of filming. Hugh Bonneville (Lord […]

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Rowan Atkinson returns as French detective, Jules Maigret

As Tellyspotting landed in the UK Friday morning, there was a bit of ‘Joy in Mudville’ news already waiting for us to report on as ITV announced that Rowan Atkinson, the former star of Blackadder and Mr Bean, is making a return to television to play Belgian author Georges Simenon’s pipe-smoking policeman, Jules Maigret, in […]

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PBS’ Arthur heads to ‘Fountain Abbey’ on Jan 26

I know, we’ve written (and, probably, overwritten) how you can tell when a series such as Downton Abbey instantly becomes a part of pop-culture. If it makes it to the mind palaces of such icons as Saturday Night Live  or Jimmy Fallon, whose Downton Sixby spoofs were priceless, then you know you have something. With […]

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