Louisa Mellor
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Freelance writer, @denofgeek TV editor, general enthusiast, not a duck.
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Articles by Louisa Mellor
The Best British TV Series of 2025 (So Far)
Have you read the news lately? I wouldn’t recommend it. You’re better off looking out of a window at any available sunshine, trees, and – if you’re lucky – the occasional dog. That said, the window solution is broadly limited to daylight hours. Come nightfall, you’ll need to turn elsewhere for diversion. That’s where the following 2025 British scripted dramas and comedies come in.
Slow Horses Series 5 Release Date and Nick Mohammed Guest Role Confirmed
Knowing that Slow Horses series five was already in the can by the time the series four finale aired has made the wait for it feel interminable. Come on, people, how long does it take to chop it into six parts, stick that Mick Jagger song on the credits, and digitally remove any boom mics left in shot? A week? Just over a year is the answer, as Apple TV+ confirm that series five will start streaming from Wednesday the 24th of September 2025.
Doctor Who Spinoff Trailer Confirms: Sea Devils Are Hot Now
You expect tweaks. As budgets dictated, the costumes of classic era Doctor Who villains were made from tin foil and old pairs of tights, so whenever an alien race is revived for the modern show, they get a brush-up. The Cybermen went from looking like sock puppets carrying air conditioning units to looking like expensive chrome espresso machines. The Silurians went from creatures from the black lagoon to slinky handbag-faced dinosaurs.
Netflix’s Dept. Q Ending Explained: Merritt Lingard, the Kidnappers, the Leith Park Shooting
Warning: contains finale spoilers for Dept. Q See it? Blink and you won’t have, but it was there for a good half second: a smile on the face of DCI Carl Morck. It’s a rare enough occurrence across nine episodes of this Netflix crime drama to make it worthy of note. Matthew Goode’s irascible detective frowned, scowled and spitted out sarcasm through his new department’s search for missing prosecutor Merritt Lingard, until the show’s very last moment, when he smiled. He’d earned it.
Netflix's Dept. Q Review: Make Way For Another Bad-Tempered, Traumatised TV Detective
This review is spoiler free. First of all, let’s make a deal: Matthew Goode’s DCI Carl Morck is the last brilliant-but-grumpy traumatised city detective with a messy homelife that crime TV is allowed. They can have him and his crew of misfits solving cold cases out of a Scottish police basement, but that’s the lot. A line must be drawn. From now on, the genre will have to work a bit harder to deliver up detective characters with personality types other than ‘punchably abrasive’.
The Handmaid’s Tale Season 6 Finale Review: The Handmaid’s Tale
Warning: contains spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale series finale. Finale? More like DVD Extra. The cast of a once-unmissable show reunited one last time for a series of watery-eyed goodbyes and I love yous. 55 minutes of June trundling around a recently liberated Boston remembering things and having feelings? The Handmaid’s Tale hasn’t delivered a more inessential episode since the ‘What Luke Did” flashback in season one. You know what’s to blame: therapy.
Doctor Who's Returning Classic-Era Villain Explained
Warning: contains spoilers for Doctor Who series 15 episode 7 “Wish World” Well, why not? Doctor Who’s previous series finale “Empire of Death” brought back a creepy mask-wearing villain from the classic era, so where’s the harm in making it two on the trot? In the final moments of series 15’s penultimate episode “Wish World”, villainous Time Lady The Rani shared her master plan with the Doctor.
The Handmaid’s Tale Season 6 Episode 9 Review: Execution
Warning: contains spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale season 6 episode 9 “Execution”. The wages of sin is death? You got that right, Wharton. In “Execution”, the wages of the commanders’ sins were a glittering firework of a death thanks to Joseph Lawrence – economist, loving father, freedom fighter and part-time James Bond. Talk about laying low the arrogance of the terrible (“Guess you decided to join the winners,” crowed Nick, just before they were all blasted into bitesize BBQ chunks).
Doctor Who’s Surprise TARDIS Cameo Explained
Warning: contains spoilers for Doctor Who episode “The Interstellar Song Contest.” Surprise! Carole Ann Ford is back on Doctor Who as the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan. In a vision experienced by the Doctor while unconscious and floating in space in new episode “The Interstellar Song Contest”, Susan appears inside the current TARDIS, calls Fifteen “Grandfather” and repeatedly tells him to “go back” and find her. Is it a surprise? Last year on Doctor Who, all we seemed to hear was the name “Susan”.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Reboot Pilot Casts Its Chosen One
In every generation there is a chosen one, and Generation Alpha’s has just been announced. 15-year-old American Horror Story and Star Wars: Skeleton Crew actor Ryan Kiera Armstrong will be joining OG Buffy the Vampire Slayer star (and reboot producer) Sarah Michelle Gellar in the series revival Hulu pilot. No further character details have been announced for the new role – including a name or whether or not Armstrong is actually playing a new slayer as is being reported elsewhere.
Is Netflix About to Run Out of Bridgerton Siblings?
Warning: contains spoilers for Bridgerton seasons one to three. Bridgerton’s creators have shown keen instincts when it comes to rearranging their adaptation of Julia Quinn’s book series for a TV audience. Instead of keeping in step with Quinn’s chronology and following Anthony Bridgerton’s love story up with that of his brother Benedict, they skipped ahead in season three to show us Colin and Penelope Featherington’s scandal-and-blackmail-hit romance.
Aunt Lydia’s Decision in The Handmaid’s Tale Is All Down to Love, Says Ann Dowd
Warning: contains spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale season six episode eight “Exodus”. In the early days of The Handmaid’s Tale, the pre-Gilead flashback episodes were eagerly awaited. Who was June Osborne before she was captured and enslaved? Who had Commander and Mrs Waterford been before they played a part in the coup that destroyed America? It took three seasons before we saw one of the show’s most anticipated flashbacks – that of Aunt Lydia.
The Handmaid's Tale Season 6 Episode 8 Review: Exodus
Warning: contains spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale season six episode eight “Exodus”. It wasn’t a red wedding; it was more subtle than that – subtler than bloodhungry fans were probably hoping. Who else was waiting for the Handmaids to unleash screaming frenzy in that chic ballroom and set upon the commanders in an anime-style storm of blades, blood and bared teeth? ‘Is it now?’ I kept asking myself as the careful, quiet wedding scenes stretched on. ‘Is it now?’ Now never came.
Doctor Who Series 15 Finale Release Time Will Break With (New) Tradition
In news that will come as comfort to traditionalists, the finale of the current series of Doctor Who (which we’ve stubbornly been calling series 15 for consistency, but almost everywhere else is called season two, so take your pick), won’t be released early on BBC iPlayer. As confirmed on the official Doctor Who website, the first time anybody will be able to see the episode will be in an as-yet-unannounced primetime evening BBC One slot on Saturday, May 31.
Line of Duty Only Returning If ‘There’s a Story to Tell’. Sadly, There’s No Shortage
Almost four years to the day that Line of Duty ended its sixth series on a final(ish) note, comes speculation about the BBC crime thriller’s rumoured return.
The Handmaid's Tale Season 6 Episode 7 Review: Shattered
Warning: contains spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale season six, episode seven “Shattered”. It’s hard to remember a more distressing scene in The Handmaid’s Tale than the sex-trafficked women at the Penthouse being rounded up and gunned down. That’s not to say there haven’t been many such scenes on this show over the years, but the brain has ways to protect itself, making my mental Rolodex fuzzy.
Sarah Michelle Gellar Quashes Buffy Reboot Leak: “Those are all fake characters”
A 16-year-old slayer named Nova, and a Scooby gang comprising a nerd called Hugo from a moneyed family, and a young vampire expert named Gracie who’s a fangirl of the OG Buffy Summers… those were the roles exclusively reported by TVLine in March as being cast for the forthcoming Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot. According to Buffy star and reboot producer Sarah Michelle Gellar? Not so much. “Those are all fake characters,” Gellar told Elite Daily in late April.
Max Minghella Explains Nick’s Choice in The Handmaid’s Tale: ‘He’s a Really Good Survivor’
Warning: contains spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale season six episode six “Surprise”. The inner world of Nick Blaine has been a mystery in The Handmaid’s Tale as long as we’ve known him. Is he a prisoner of Gilead, or one of its soldiers? Over six seasons, the character has risen astronomically through the republic’s ranks, taking him from the Waterfords’ driver to commander to leader of New Bethlehem and US spy.
Trash Talk and Chutzpah: Taskmaster Series 19 Looks Like the Most Competitive Yet
The secret of Taskmaster – the long-running comedy nonsense series that started life on Dave and now airs on Channel 4 in the UK – is that its contestants really want to win. The show’s comedians often feign insouciance and a take-it-or-leave-it approach to scoring points, but even its coolest customers secretly harbour a desire to land at the top of the league table.
The Handmaid's Tale Season 6 Episode 6 Review: Surprise
Warning: contains spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale season 6 episode 6 “Surprise”. Holly was right. Mothers so often are. Earlier this season, June protested her mom’s characterisation of Nick as an untrustworthy Nazi monster, and guess what? Holly called it. Of all the people – Lawrence, Serena – in whom June was forced to place her dubious trust this episode, Nick was the one who betrayed her. Given the choice between striking a blow at the heart of Gilead or saving his own skin, Nick chose his skin.
Doctor Who: Blink-And-You’ll-Miss-It Clue Feeds Theory About the Monster in “The Well”
Warning: contains spoilers for Doctor Who series 15 episode 3 “The Well”. The first time the Doctor survived the malignant entity on Planet Midnight, he wasn’t able to truthfully tell Donna Noble what it was, or whether it was still alive. Hundreds of centuries later, after his second encounter with the alien force in new episode “The Well”, the Doctor told Belinda categorically that it had gone and that they were safe.
Doctor Who’s “The Well” Callback Explained
Warning: contains plot spoilers for Doctor Who episode “The Well”. If they were really concentrating, fans may have got there just before the Doctor did, at the mention of an Xtonic Star. If they were really really concentrating, they could have drawn the connection even earlier, with the very first reference to Galvanic Radiation and a planet where nothing can live. What connection?
House of the Dragon Season 3 Finally Gears Up For Action With New Cast
Stabbings. Bludgeonings. Splitting men from groin to throat. Slipping on entrails. Killing a warhorse with a single punch. And corpses so mangled after battle that they’re only identifiable by their shoe size. Such are the rumoured feats of the Westerosi war knights recently announced by Variety as having been cast in House of the Dragon season three. In short: expect violence. It’s about time. It’s overdue in fact.
Wednesday Season 2 Trailer Brings Addams Family to the Fore
After a long, WGA strike-mandated wait, the second season of 2022 Netflix hit Wednesday starring Jenna Ortega in the lead role is finally nigh, and this time the Addams Family are taking a step forward. Not only is Wednesday’s younger brother Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez) joining Nevermore Academy this semester, but parents Morticia and Gomez (Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzmán) will also have “an increased presence on campus” according to the show’s creators.
The Handmaid's Tale Season 6 Episode 5 Review: Janine
Warning: contains spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale season six episode five “Janine”. Of course New Bethlehem was a lie. The Sons of Jacob have a good thing going in Gilead: unchecked power, privilege and pussy – who’s going to give all that up in the name of international relations? In episode five, Lawrence learned the truth. The High Commanders are only paying lip service to New Bethlehem while they fill up on Mercedes and Rolexes, and it fills up with credulous marks like Rita.
The Handmaid’s Tale Season 6 Episode 3 Review: Promotion
Warning: contains spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale season six episode three “Promotion”. Thank heavens for final seasons; they come in like Oprah handing out gifts. Moira, Luke, Rita, look under your seats. YOU get a plot, YOU get a plot. Everybody gets a plot! Not just a plot, but in Moira’s case also some righteous dialogue that felt like her character had blinked awake after seasons spent locked under an enchantment.
Black Mirror Season 7 Easter Eggs
Warning: contains spoilers for Black Mirror season seven. It’s not surprising for a group of stories themed so strongly around returning to the past that Black Mirror season seven harks back to its own history several times in Easter egg form. In the background of the new episodes are multiple shared-universe references to previous instalments going all the way back to season two.
Black Mirror Season 7 Episode 4 Review: Plaything
Warning: contains spoilers for Black Mirror season 7 episode 4 “Plaything.” You have to admit, the man has a point. Peter Capaldi’s “Plaything” character may have spent the last four decades tripping balls in a funky-smelling attic while serving as a wide-eyed acolyte for a bunch of potentially murderous Tamagotchi, but he’s right about human violence; look at the tale we were just told.
Black Mirror Season 7 Episode 3 Review: Hotel Reverie
Warning: contains spoilers for Black Mirror season 7 episode 2 “Hotel Reverie” When season three’s “San Junipero” came out in 2016, it made a splash. Acerbic, cynical Black Mirror – a series in which a man had sex with a pig, a child killer was tortured for public entertainment, and the Christmas special featured a five year old freezing to death in the snow – was capable of… romance?
Black Mirror Season 7 Episode 2 Review: Bête Noire
Warning: contains spoilers for Black Mirror episode “Bête Noire”. It’s done it. Black Mirror has finally delivered its most horrific, depraved vision yet: a universe ruled by someone who thinks that miso is an appropriate addition to a chocolate bar. Honestly, what sick mind comes up with this stuff?
The Handmaid’s Tale Season 6 Episode 3 Review: Devotion
Warning: contains spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale season 6 episode 3 “Devotion”. So close! For years now, Moira’s – and to a lesser extent, Luke’s – main job on The Handmaid’s Tale has been to wear a knitted beanie while looking concerned about June. Then, it finally looked as though Samira Wiley and O-T Fagbenle’s characters were getting their own plot with its own action and stakes.
The Handmaid's Tale Season 6 Episode 2 Review: Exile
Warning: contains spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale season 6 episode 2 “Exile”. Emotionally, The Handmaid’s Tale rarely misses, but structurally, it isn’t always what you’d call elegant. “Exile” didn’t so much progress the plot as reverse it. In the season five finale, June and Serena boarded a train to the future, but now they’re both back in the past with June once again running Mayday missions and Serena once again swishing around Gilead/New Bethlehem high on her own supply.
The Handmaid’s Tale Season 6 Episode 1 Review: Train
Warning: contains spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale season 6 episode 1. Hallelujah! And again, hallelujah! Something unambiguously good has happened to June Osborne. After Canada turned out not to be the promised land, she was forced apart from Luke again, and her escape chute slammed her with pinpoint accuracy into the person she’d spent most of last season trying to murder (and vice-versa), June finally got a win.
The Handmaid's Tale Recap: What Happened In Season 5?
Warning: contains finale spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale season five. After June and the other formerly enslaved Handmaids tore Fred Waterford limb from limb at the end of season four, season five was all about June v Serena.
The Replacement Ending Is Ludicrously Overblown
This review contains The Replacement finale spoilers. Praise be for the three-parter. Even when the narrative wheels come off, as they did in spectacular fashion in The Replacement’s ludicrously overblown finale, you’re still quids-in when it comes to your time investment. A dodgy last hour after two decent instalments is forgivable, especially when it’s all so bonkers you can’t look away.
I Will Find You: New Harlan Coben Adaptation Is a Netflix First
Lacrosse swapped for football. Guns for knives. Pants for trousers. Sidewalks for pavements. The leafy suburbs and grimy city streets of New Jersey swapped for the leafy suburbs and grimy city streets of Greater Manchester. A character named “Tripp” renamed “Doug”… Until now, all of the Netflix Harlan Coben TV adaptations have translated the books’ original US settings to equivalents in the UK.
The White Lotus Season 3 Too Slow? No, This is All Heading Somewhere Big
Plot it all out on paper, and between the first and sixth episodes of The White Lotus season three, very little changes.
Doctor Who Series 15 Avoids an “Essential” Part of the Show, Says Russell T Davies
Rose Tyler wanted to escape her humdrum life. Martha Jones fell in love with the Doctor. Donna Noble realised that she was bigger on the inside. Amy Pond imprinted early on her Raggedy Man. Clara Oswald saved the Doctor by being everything, everywhere, all at once. Ruby Sunday had an origin mystery to solve… Every Nu-Who companion has their reason for travelling on the TARDIS, but new companion Belinda Chandra’s is different from most: she’s there so that she can leave.
Doctor Who Series 15 Episode Titles Tease “Planet Belinda” Mystery
They’re here! The officially stamped episode titles for all eight adventures in the new series of Doctor Who have arrived, and it turns out that the leaks and rumours were… more or less right. Four of the new episodes have been written by showrunner Russell T Davies (he’s done the first two and last two, and has a co-writing credit on ep three), with three writers making their Doctor Who TV debut and one returning Who screenwriter, Pete McTighe, in the middle.
Doctor Who Series 15 Cast: Meet the New Guest Stars
The series 15 trailer briefly introduced us to new Doctor Who companion Belinda Chandra, played by Varada Sethu, and confirmed the return of familiar faces Millie Gibson as Ruby Sunday, Jemma Redgrave as UNIT’s Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, Ruth Madeley as Shirley Anne Bingham, Bonnie Langford as Mel Bush, and Anita Dobson as the mysterious Mrs Flood. But who else will be joining the Doctor as guest stars for the new eight-episode series?
Gangs of London Series 3 Episode 1 Flashback Explained
Warning: contains spoilers for Gangs of London series one and two. The opening scene of Gangs of London series three doesn’t come with a caption, but the presence of Emmett Scanlan’s Jack – whom we saw murdered back in series one – tells us that we’re in flashback territory. The scene takes place a couple of years before the show begins, and depicts an event previously thought unconnected to the violent, gangland world of the Wallaces and the Dumanis: the death of Elliot Carter’s wife and son.
Gangs of London Series 3 Cast: Meet the New Characters
Warning: contains spoilers for Gangs of London series one and two. Despite the main cast’s remarkable abilities to survive gunshots, torture, and brutal beatings, the life expectancy for a Gangs of London guest character is short. Series one said goodbye to a whole community of Welsh travellers, a Nigerian criminal gang, The Investors’ fixer Jevan, undercover police handler Vicky, new mayor of London Nasir, and any number of anonymous goons who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Gangs of London Recap: Where Elliot, Sean, Luan, Marian, Ed and the Gangs Were Left
The UK’s most brutal and expertly choreographed action show is back! With new characters and old rivalries, the Sky Atlantic drama returns with an third series, all eight episodes of which are available to stream now. Gangs of London series two ended on the uneasy alliances of former enemies forced to band together for survival.
Look Who’s Getting Married In The Handmaid’s Tale Season 6 Trailer
“God has a plan for me and I cannot hide from his plan anymore,” says Yvonne Strahovski’s Serena Joy in the first full trailer for the final season of The Handmaid’s Tale. That plan appears to involve (ding ding) round two of life as the wife of a Gilead Commander. The trailer shows Serena as the bride in a full-scale Gilead wedding, complete with pews of Handmaids in attendance. Who’s the groom?
Black Mirror Season 7 Trailer Reveals "USS Callister" Isn't the Only Episode Getting a Sequel
The first thing you hear is the voice, a nasal British accent talking about software.
The Dog House Isn’t a Dog Dating Show, It’s Therapy
Like a cloud of candyfloss twirled around its stick, the sweetest, wispiest things can have a solid core, just as people with the sunniest dispositions have often had the stormiest lives. The same applies to TV shows. A programme that seems twee on the surface may turn out to have depth and steel beneath its cheery face.
Adolescence Episode 3 Is Extraordinary Television
The only thing more worrying than being a teenager? Raising one. That’s a take-home from new Netflix drama Adolescence, which follows the aftermath of a 13-year-old’s arrest on suspicion of murder. It’s an exceptional four-parter driven by a desperate question: how could something so horrendous happen, and what is to blame? Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham’s script avoids simplistic answers.
Chess Masters: The Endgame Proves That No, Chess Is Not a Spectator Sport
They did it with baking. They did it with sewing. They did it with pottery. Can they do it with chess? By adding enough double entendres, excitable co-presenters and ludicrously overstated stakes, can they turn another largely non-verbal hobby that people occupy themselves with of an evening into a workable television format? No they can’t, not that it stopped them from trying.
SXSW 2025 Documentary Preview: The Biggest Doc Premieres from Austin
A film festival without documentaries is like a day without sunshine. Thankfully, South by Southwest has always brought the goods when it comes to non-fiction filmmaking. The 2025 SXSW Film & TV Festival is filled with compelling documentary features receiving their World, North American, or U.S. premieres. From the pastoral and thought-provoking Arrest the Midwife to the chilling Age of Disclosure to a Marc Maron project that asks Are We Good? – here are the docs to watch this year in Austin.
SXSW 2025 TV Preview: The Studio, Happy Face, #1 Happy Family USA, and More
Whether it’s in your living room on a flatscreen, in bed on a tablet, or at your desk on a laptop, watching television is usually a relatively private experience. That’s not the case at South by Southwest. The 2025 SXSW Film and TV Festival is filled with small screen series getting their public debut on big screens. Some are appropriately huge like the star-studded Apple TV+ comedy The Studio, while others are lowkey indie and international pilots looking for a home.
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