This week
MUNICH
LEWIS
THE IT CROWD
THE UK THEME
THE NIGHT WATCH
Munich
Directed by Steven Spielberg
In September, 1972, an unprecedented terrorist attack unfolded live before television viewers around the world.
During the second week of the summer Olympics, the extremist Palestinian group, Black September, invaded the Olympic village, killing two members of the Israeli team and capturing nine as hostages.
The tense stand-off and tragic massacre which followed ended 21 hours later. These events were seen around the world.
What Munich deals with is the secret aftermath, and the highly charged mission of retribution that followed.
At the centre of the story is a young Israeli patriot and Intelligence officer (Avner, played by Eric Bana) who leads four other recruits on a mission to find and kill the 11 people accused by Israeli intelligence of planning the Munich attack.
Working in secret and outside any international law, the five men methodically plan and carry out assassinations.
Spielberg calls the film his "prayer for peace" and throughout the movie flashes back to the harrowing scenes of the kidnap and killings of the Israeli hostages.
"I felt there needed to be a constant reminder of what this story is hinging on," says Spielberg, "lest we forget what started this round of blood-for-blood."
He also talks about the vivid impression 1972 made on him: "I remember exactly where I was, the television set I was watching it on, and how I was watching - like everybody else, Wide World of Sports, when this incident took place," he says.
"It made an indelible impression on me, and I think that impression was redoubled years later when I saw the documentary One Day in September."
Other cast members include Daniel Craig, Ciaran Hinds, Mathieu Kassovitz and Geoffrey Rush.
The film has been mired in controversy about its political sympathies and historical accuracy from all sides.
CERTIFICATE 15
MUNICH IS RELEASED ON FRIDAY, 27 JANUARY, 2006
Lewis
ITV 1
Kevin Whately starred as John Thaw's sidekick, Sergeant Robbie Lewis, in Inspector Morse for 13 years.
Now he's reprising the character in a two hour film for ITV1.
Five years after the death of his long-time police partner Morse, Lewis - now an Inspector - returns to the Thames Valley police and his stomping ground of the university city of Oxford.
Back in the UK from a two-year attachment on the British Virgin Islands, Lewis, now a widower, finds himself teamed up with the much younger Sergeant James Hathaway, played by Laurence Fox, and reporting to a new female boss.
Even before Lewis can get home from the airport, he and Hathaway are diverted by the flashing blue lights and police activity of a murder scene, centred on the death of American college student Regan Peverill.
In November 2000, John Thaw and Kevin Whately made their farewell appearance in the dramatisation of Colin Dexter's final novel The Remorseful Day, in which Morse collapsed in an Oxford college quad and later died in hospital.
John Thaw died in 2002.
Reminders of Morse appear throughout the film, but does Lewis without Morse work?
LEWIS IS ON ITV1 ON SUNDAY, 29 JANUARY AT 9PM
The IT Crowd
Channel 4
The IT Crowd is a new sitcom written by Graham Linehan (Black Books, Father Ted) and produced by Ash Atallah (The Office).
It centres on Roy (Chris O'Dowd) and Moss (Richard Ayoade) who make up the IT department of Reynholm Industries.
While the rest of their colleagues work in fantastic surroundings at the top of a skyscraper, Roy and Moss work in the horrible dark basement.
Their world is shattered by the arrival of a new "relationship manager", Jen (Katherine Parkinson), a young woman who knows as much about computers as your average 17th-century farmer.
It's filmed on location and in front of a live studio audience and, in keeping with the subject matter, The IT Crowd will be premiered on Channel 4's website, before being broadcast on the main channel.
Chris Morris has a cameo role as the boss.
THE IT CROWD IS ON CHANNEL 4 ON FRIDAY, 3 FEBRUARY, AT 9.30PM
CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE FIRST EPISODE ONLINE
The UK Theme
The BBC UK Theme, played on Radio 4 at 0530 every morning, is to be scrapped after more than 30 years.
Mark Damazer, the Controller of Radio 4, has announced that it will be replaced by a "pacy news briefing".
The UK Theme includes excerpts from Danny Boy, What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor?, Scotland the Brave, Men of Harlech and Rule Britannia.
The tunes were arranged by Fritz Spiegl, an Austrian-born composer who fled the annexation of Austria into Germany during the 1930s.
Fans of the theme have set up an online petition to try to save it and the Labour MP John Spellar has called for a debate in the Commons on the issue.
Mark Damazer, Controller of Radio 4, has said that although he regrets upsetting listeners, his decision is final.
Is this "a blow to British tradition", as one listener wrote on a Radio 4 message board, or is it time to move on? Our panel will give us their views.
THE UK THEME IS PLAYED ON RADIO 4 AT 5.30AM UNTIL APRIL
The Night Watch
By Sarah Waters
Sarah Waters' previous works, Tipping the Velvet, Affinity and, most recently, Fingersmith, used the Victorian era as a backdrop.
Sarah Waters
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The Night Watch sees her move closer to the present day as her four main characters endure the Blitz and its aftermath, although the book continues Waters' interest in the untold lives of those on society's fringes as we learn the origins of each character's isolation.
The novel has a reverse time structure - we meet the characters in 1947 and trace their stories back to 1941.
Kay is a mannish lesbian, a hardworking and heroic ambulance driver during the war but rejected by society afterwards.
Duncan and Viv are brother and sister whose war experiences produced secrets that still blight their lives, whilst Helen's war brought her a relationship she struggles to hold on to in peacetime.
The characters' lives weave together in unexpected ways as we follow them through air raids and imprisonment, to back street abortionists and religious healers.
THE NIGHT WATCH IS PUBLISHED BY VIRAGO ON 2 FEBRUARY, 2006
Newsnight Review is broadcast after Newsnight every Friday at 11pm on BBC Two.
Don't forget that you can watch Newsnight Review online via this website. The programme is available in broadband from 1200 BST on the Saturday after originally broadcast for one week.
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