James R | On 24, Apr 2016

What’s available on-demand on Freeview? Keep up-to-date with our weekly catch-up TV column, including reviews of shows on ITV Hub, new releases on All 4 and a guide to My5.
 

(For BBC TV reviews and round-ups, see our weekly Best of BBC iPlayer column. Or for reviews of the shows on All 4’s Walter Presents, click here.)

Rush Hour (All 4)

Rush Hour is the latest movie franchise to spawn a TV series reboot and the pilot episode manages to maintain a solid standard of entertainment, even if that standard falls short of the original film. A lot of that success was down to the chemistry between Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan. Here, Justin Hires steps into the shoes of fast-talking directive Talker, who is given the task of babysitting Hong Kong’s Detective Lee (John Foo). Their banter feels forced at times, largely because the lines they’re given to deliver are taken almost word-for-word from the big green, but Foo’s fighting moves are accomplished for a TV production, while Hires proves more than capable at getting laughs – as harmless buddy cop shows go, there’s enough to like here to promise brainless fun, especially as Lee’s sister is introduced to take us away from the familiar film’s narrative. It might not cut the mustard on a paid SVOD service, but this fits right in with E4’s expanding list of US TV imports, which already includes Empire, Jane the Virgin and Scream Queens.

Available to watch on All 4 until 19th May

Photo: Warner Brothers

Unreported World: The Forgotten Holocaust Survivors (All 4)

Krishnan Guru-Murthy may be known by some for some recent, high-profile interviews with celebrities that have gone wrong, but he’s on fine form here, as he travels to Israel, where Holocaust survivors are living in poverty. Sensitively interviewing his subjects and unearthing some truly appalling statistics (45,000 people who survived the Holocaust now live below the poverty line in Israel), it’s a shocking piece of investigative journalism that once again demonstrates the importance of Channel 4’s Unreported World. “It’s not right, but what can I do?” says one, after we witness a group of them picking through leftovers to find something edible.

Available to watch on All 4

Photo: Channel 4

Fierce (ITV Hub)

How many times can you say a word before it loses all meaning? Fierce gives it a good go, with naturalist Steve Backshall barking out the word within seconds of the programme’s start – just in case we accidentally mistook the show for a run-of-the-mill animal series presented by a nice, tame host. Pufferfish hardly make your jaw drop, but it’s a rare chance to see a Komodo dragon in action that makes Fierce worth checking out – if only it lived a bit more up to its title. Every now and then, you’ll wish you were watching River Monsters (with “Jeremy Wade, freshwater detective”) instead.

Photo: ITV Productions

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