Skip to content
Douglas Is Cancelled is something that could come as a shock to Douglas Bellowes (Hugh Bonneville – To Olivia), who presents the equivalent of The One Show – alongside Madeline Crow (Karen Gillan – Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 IMAX 3D), so it’s a bit like This Time but without Alan Partridge, albeit focusing more on events behind the scenes.
However, there’s an errant tweet out there somewhere, claiming Douglas said something at a wedding, the details to which we are not privvy, but then he can barely remember what he said, himself, as it was so innocuous.
He’s basically what would happen is Eamonn Holmes said something stupid, as he’s a mainstream presenter of a similar age, but the drama gets straight into the meat of the issue, whilst also being very wordy, but it’s definitely engaging, and at least Steven Moffat has redeemed himself from returning to the awful Doctor Who!
However, if they can keep a lid on it, everything will soon blow over, right? Well, you’ll have to watch to find out, since this is just a preview so far, but then again, I don’t want to give spoilers, even in a full review, and there’s four episodes in total to watch.
It’s safe to say that I like how his wife, Sheila (Alex Kingston – Treason) – the editor of a daily newspaper, says she might cover it, if it’s a slow news day. Hugh counters situations like war, flooding and “the climate crisis“, to which Sheila replies, “No, a PROPER atrocity, like someone on Blue Peter having a wank on a webcam”.
Hugh Bonneville comes across like his W1A/Twenty Twelve character, Ian Fletcher, which is a good thing, and I see this might possibly be getting a comeback in some form, but for this, there’s also a scene with Joe Wilkinson. I won’t say what happens, but it’s the first time he’s ever made me laugh!
Almost finally, it seemed a bit odd that this is released during the Euro 2024 championship, but maybe the intended audience is for people like me who can’t stand football? 😀
And finally, there’s a mid-credits scene, so at least that’ll keep the waffling continuity announcer at bay… for a few minutes!
Oh, and I haven’t yet mentioned the obvious Doctor Who connections between Moffat and regulars Ms Gillan and Ms Kingston, but also Mr Bonneville, who played Henry Avery in The Curse of the Black Spot, alongside Matt Smith. It’s series 6, episode 3 of ‘New Who’, too.
Overall, I enjoyed the opener, but after that, it just seemed to tread water, and the third episode was particularly pointless, because there was no Douglas, and it just showed Toby being creepy. That episode could’ve been summarised in about 15 minutes.
Douglas Is Cancelled begins on ITV on Thursday night at 9pm, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. However, once announced, it will appear on the New DVD Blu-ray 3D and 4K releases UK list.
I expect once episode one airs, the whole series will be online on ITVX.
Director: Ben Palmer
Producer: Lawrence Till
Writer: Steven Moffat
Cast:
Douglas Bellowes: Hugh Bonneville
Madeline Crow: Karen Gillan
Sheila Bellowes: Alex Kingston
Toby: Ben Miles
Claudia Bellowes: Madeleine Power
Theresa: Millicent Wong
Driver: Toby Longworth
Bently: Simon Russell Beale
Sebastian: Michael Parr
Herself: Kate Garraway
Tilson: Patrick Baladi
Helen: Stephanie Hyam
Tom: Joe Wilkinson
Morgan: Nick Mohammed
Jenn: Ramanique Ahluwalia
Katerine: Diana Noris
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.