Born to Kill

Sad how TV won't even look at any drama unless it's got some sort of a crime involved. Born to Kill is somewhere in the middle of the heap, not brilliant, not terrible. it's got some pretty crude psychology underpinning it - son of murderer turns out to be psychopathic killer, just like his dad - but a rivetting performance by the lad himself, who's clearly one to watch. Out on the fringes, though, is Daniel Mays as an ex-policeman going through a tricky time. He's a really good actor but he's made a mistake. This is a crap part, lousily written, which makes him look like a pathetic wimp and doesn't give him the chance to build anything of any interest. A tough reminder, as if we didn't know, that it has to be there in the writing or it won't be there at all. 

Line of Duty (again)

Yes, I know. I wrote about this only a couple of weeks ago, bemoaning the fact that it was trying to do action movie stuff when that isn't Mercurio's strong suit. But what is? This is. Tense interrogation stuff, dripping with political manoeuvres, and a devilish capacity for surprise. It all seems to be going according to plan, as the good guys move in on the seriously weird inspector, with an impressive chain of evidence closing around her - when suddenly she's turning it into a serious complaint about unfair treatment, superbly backed up with a ton of her own evidence, which they're forced to watch unfold before their unbelieving eyes. and yes, of course it helps that it's Thandie Newton doing her thing, but it's not just her. The whole thing is gripping, important and convincing. Quite magical.  

Line of Duty

And here we go again. that tense feeling, as a familiar favourite returns to the screen, and you start to wonder "Is this the time they're going to cock it up?" I've been a Jed Mercurio fan since way back (Cardiac Arrest, anyone?), and I love his sense of the politics of places of work, the tense conversational battles for power. He was brilliant on the NHS, and who can blame him for moving into the police, because that's what it has to be about if you want to be on TV. He's got great dialogue, a terrific cast, and fabulous ideas. So why this compulsion to shunt it towards an action movie, as though we were all sitting there getting bored? L o D 4 starts with a tense situation, and Thandie Newton - what more could you ask? But the cliffhanger at the end of the episode is an unconvincing showdown fight that makes me wonder if i'm going to be able to keep watching. It's Ok, Jed, it really is. What you do is terrific. You don't need to tart it up with third-rate Hollywood.

Over the cliff with Brexit

So if I'm going to claim to be an informed citizen, I ought to grit my teeth and watch the Brexit documentary. So glad I did. Nothing much there to cheer me, but I feel wiser, and clearer in my mind.

First off, we do not want a second referendum. Well, we might want the vote, but we certainly don't want the campaign - and the rage and spite of Brexit voters denied their due. It was sad to watch the Lib Dem man struggling to convince Leave voters that most young working migrants don't come to these shores to claim benefits. he's spoken to the migrants and these people haven't, but they've read the Daily Mail and they know they're right.

The real horror show, though, was the MPs. Johnson, Gove and Davies were cheery and bullish, confident that everything would be fine despite clear evidence from the programme and their interviewer that it might not be as simple as that. The Eu can't afford for us to end up better than we were; all EU negotiations take for ever, and are cobbled together at the last minute; substantial identified groups in the UK are going to suffer badly from this deal. So what? They know they've won, and their whole background and identity tells them that blustering through and sounding confident will be enough. Theresa May feels she has to honour the result of the vote, but the vote was always a lie - "Hey, let's just do it!"  We can't just do it. It will be complicated, and if the people in charge of our side of the negotiations think it's simple then it won't end well. We'll get a choice between a lousy deal and no deal at all, and what happens then? 

Prime Suspect?

Prime Suspect 1973. Well, that's what they call it. Much better, much more honest, not to pretend that there's any connection, but we know telly executives, they just can't leave a good thing alone. So I give it a try, just for an hour, and for most of that I'm wishing I hadn't bothered. It's all centred around her - hey, she's Jane Tennison, but younger - so the camera dwells on her, senior officers look for her reaction, the script hastily scurries around to make sure that we know she's young and keen and eager to succeed, even though her family don't understand...

Give me a break. In fact, I gave myself a break. I sat down to watch the original, all three hours and twenty minutes of it, just to remind myself what we've all been missing. It's stunning. And she's a bitch. Driven, selfish, deeply inconsiderate - but rivetting. There's a confidence in the writing, direction and acting that this is important, is worth doing well, which is much more compulsive than the anxious circling around of the current prequel. As they used to say on lemonade bottles when I was a kid "BEWARE OF IMITATIONS."   

Brilliant Broadchurch?

That's what the - misleading - Guardian headline said next day. the "brilliant" actually referred to Series 1, which I agree was stunning. Series Two was a mess (described on this blog, on Jan 6 2015) and it was the triumph of hope over experience to imagine that Series Three would be anything at all, but still, optimist to the end, I gave it a try.

It opened with a stunning procedural sequence, where the victim of a rape went through the process of examination - a slow, respectful piece of observation which was almost like a silent ritual. The David Tennant character, who would very soon reveal himself to be as selfish, impulsive and insensitive as he always was (and needs to be, for the grit of the series), somehow magically maintained a positive calm throughout. but then we have to fit all the old characters into the story, and the sound of creaks got louder. I turned off when Olivia Colman was required to act totally stupid when discovering that her son in school had been involved in handling porn. Sorry. Olivia Colman's not stupid, Ellie in Broadchurch is not stupid, I can't be doing with this...

It was once a good, maybe great, series. don't milk it. Leave it alone. 

Morgan and Farage

Yeah, OK. I should have known. Piers Morgan and Nigel Farage, on screen together for an hour; how can that possibly end well? But I just thought, it might be an interesting take, a different view. Sadly, no. There was a brief moment when they really were at loggerheads, simultaneously shouting at each other with Farage, as ever, relying on bluster to get him through. But Morgan's chosen battleground was "eccentric members of UKIP I have known", which wasn't the point, and which Farage rightly dismissed. the point is the social consequences of Farage's rhetoric, the people who get beaten up, even killed, as a result of promoting "Britain First." We didn't get much about that.

What we did get was Morgan's fantasy, that one day Trump might be in charge of america, Farage in Number Ten, but "Where's my gig in this?"  widespread laughter, and applause. This, after all, is about celebrity vanity, and how good and witty we look. I shan't make the same mistake again. 

Tom Waits

A glorious Tom Waits tribute on BBC4, featuring some fabulous clips, and knowledgeable comments from people who've played with him, as well as devoted fans who've spent a lot of time listening to him - Guy Garvey, Ian Rankin. I have one CD (though that may well change in the next few days) which I love taking on long car journeys, but there was a ton of stuff about his development and endless variety of styles which was new to me. But the icing on the cake, necessarily, was the man himself, who's a stunning incarnation of creative independence. Who else would look at an awards ceremony honouring his contribution to music, and pronounce: "I don't have any hits, and I'm difficult to work with - but they say that as though it's a bad thing."  Maybe I am getting old, but I'm telling you, they don't make them like that any more. 

The Moorside

It didn't sound that promising. gloomy, sordid case (the Shannon Matthews kidnap, cooked up by her mum and a relative), protests by relatives of the girl concerned, and snide rumours about locals being paid for their involvement...money involved in making TV. who knew? Sheridan smith would of course be brilliant, but otherwise...

How wrong can you be? This was a consistently intelligent, sensitive two-part documentary, which wasn't at all interested in the sordid headlines. The core of it was a powerful triangular relationship, involving the sad mum at the centre of it all, and two of her friends, one a passionate activist who wants to assert the qualities of the estate in sticking together, the other more cautious, more sceptical, and quicker to the truth. All three were terrific. We end up sadder and wiser, thinking through what's gone on - high quality TV.   

Apple Tree Yard

The four-part TV series Apple Tree Yard was promoted, very heavily, as finally supplying the truth about middle aged women and sex. I nearly ditched it after the first episode, which had much heavy breathing, instant coupling and a ton of loose ends. A friend persuaded me that episode 2 was an improvement, and by the end I was happy to watch through 3 and 4 to the end. The family stuff, excellently acted, was much better than the sex stuff, and most of the court case was well done.

Until the very end. There's her and him, being tried for murder and manslaughter. they work through the verdicts, him first, with the foreperson simply giving the jury's decision.. Murder? "Not guilty." Her, for murder?  "Not guilty."  Him for manslaughter. "Guilty." Her, for manslaughter? Big pause. "We find the defendant..." another big pause..."not guilty." It's pathetic. In real life, the four verdicts would be given in exactly the same way. But saying " We find the defendant..." every time would slow things down. On the other hand, they can't resist the chance to milk it, to keep us wondering at home, will she go down or not? It would be nice to be treated like an adult.  

Black and British

Celebrate the good stuff while it's here. I think "Black and British" is terrific (BBC 2 on Wednesdays this week's was the third of four). David Olusoga is intelligent, engaging, very positive. There's a clever inclusiveness running through the series, whereby local people of all kinds are invited in, to share this common heritage, so that the aging, white members of a bowls club gather round to applaud the erection of a plaque on their clubhouse, recording the career of a former slave of whom none of us have ever heard - until now.  The series is full of interesting stories, stunning characters, which makes you think "Why haven't we heard about this before?" But now we have, and the plaque, and the series, and the book are there, leaving a trail which others will pick up, and from which we'll all end up wiser.

NW

There's so much drama on TV which doesn't quite make it - works hard, briefly promises, but just fails to convince or goes over the top, that it's a treat to welcome something that just feels totally right. Turning the whole of a novel into one 90-minute chunk feels like a huge risk, but for me the version of Zadie Smith's NW shown on BBC 1 was entirely convincing. Real characters, dialogue and situations. A huge range of background and character, but rooted in an utterly real London - part of whose identity depends on that rich variation within limited space. The friendship of the two main women, tied together but different in so many ways, was sympathetic and detailed, drawing you in. A mix of moods, no dull or stupid moments, just an hour and a half of sensitive intelligence and absorbing viewing. Such a treat. 

Ireland 40 All Blacks 29

For the past couple of months I've been virtually housebound. I've been really grateful for Netflix, and BT sport. when I signed up to them I wasn't at all sure they'd be worth it, but now there's no doubt. BT sport, rather suprisingly, had the Ireland v. All Blacks game, so I thought I'd give it a go.

Utterly rivetting. Three years ago, Ireland built up a 19-0 lead against the all Blacks, only to be caught at the end. Here they were up by 30-8 when the All Blacks started to haul them in. Three ruthless tries in hardly any time at all, and it looked like the same old story, yet again. But amazingly the Irish had the nerve and stamina to keep attacking, to chase every ball, make every tackle, and ended up scoring a wonderful try - intelligent, courageous, absolutely no doubt about it - and ended up winning by 40 - 29. Watching the highlights is pretty good, but there's nothing to beat seeing a story like that unfold in real time. Thank you BT sport. 

The Fall

Wow. Last week a Guardian critic wrote that they were still watching The Fall, even though nothing was happening. I'll bet they didn't feel like that after the last episode, when things kept happening all the time - often unexpected, invariably violent but totally gripping. I didn't watch this from the start, because "serial killer" to me isn't an attraction, but the strength of the recommendations, in print and by word of mouth, changed my mind during the first series, and I've been an avid fan ever since. Yes, it's intense, and maybe not entirely realistic all the time. Gillian Anderson is maybe more of a loose cannon than most police forces would permit, but she is so watchable. Most important of all, the writing's thoughtful and clever, dealing with real if nasty stuff, and there's a lot of minor characters taken seriously - the people in the hospital have been terrific. I've really loved it, and i'm praying that they'll accept the logic of the story and the script, and accept that this is the end of the line. I really do not want to watch The Fall, series 4. 

HyoperNormalisation

Not the snappiest title in the world, but it's worth remembering. It's the latest documentary from Adam Curtis, and I'm a fan. some love him, some hate him, because he has a very distinctive style, but he does make you think and he's not dull. HyperNormalisation comes in at a snappy two and three-quarter hours, and is only available on iplayer. and that's right. You don't want to take it in all at once, and this way you can go back to it, check over things that might have seemed preposterous or confusing, and generally do the kind of clear independent thinking which Curtis - and some of the rest of us - favour. 

what's it about? Oh, all sorts. Egypt, Libya, Syria, Iran. the US and Russia. the history of suicide bombing. How news is presented to discourage us from thinking, Facebook stuff like that. Nobody else does quite what he does. Some of the links seem outrageous, and I don't agree with everything i hear, but I do feel a lot wiser and more energised for having watched it.

(If you want to catch it, it may be easier to type in 'Adam Curtis' - I got the title right, but still couldn't trace it first time round.)

National Treasure

Now that is more like it. Having moaned fairly steadily about the drama diet available on our small screens, we finally have something rivetting. it's got an immediate oomph, dealing with Savile type accusations/Operation Yewtree, celebrities under suspicion for sexual crimes etc...but there are so many ways of getting that wrong. Hiring Jack Thorne to write the script is a good start, but if you then get Robbie Coltrane as your central character you're cooking with gas. I've been a fan ever since tutti Frutti, and the big man did not disappoint. (He was even, like me, walking around with a stick - I know, Robbie, really, I do, I feel your pain). And his scenes with his brittle, disturbed daughter (the fabulous Andrea Riseborough) were electric. I have a regular TV date for the next three weeks, to which I can unequivocally look forward. Yippee!   

One of Us

There's not a whole lot of current TV that's "must watch", so I've allowed myself to watch all four episodes of One Of Us, knowing that it's  not that great, but it had a stunning cast and a great Highlands setting, even if moments seem a bit improbable. And then we get to the end of episode four and it goes totally off the rails - ludicrously unrealistic explanations and resolutions of what's been going on. From the look of it my outrage is widely shared, so how on earth has this project been able to command a massive budget for something that's ultimately so flimsy?     

Scottish Highlands

As previously mentioned, there's not a lot being transmitted in the routine Telly week that I want to watch. So - despite being ignorant of nature in most of its forms - I've given the series on the Scottish Highlands a go. Well, four goes, in fact, since it's been on over the last four weeks, and I've watched every one.

On the down side, someone's told Ewan MacGregor "This is a great script. Imagine it's Shakespeare." It isn't, and its phoney solemnity, backed up with some suitably self-important music, almost made me watch with the sounds turned off. But that would still have been with it, because the photography has been phenomenal. I have distant but vivid memories of walking in Scotland, but realism says that I shan't be doing that again. So this not only brought all of those snapshots back, but added detailed observation of wildlife which was simply amazing. Some mug with a camera has stood there for months, maybe years, just to bring us these sequences - osprey catching fish, salmon leaping up stream, baby guillemots somehow summoning up the guts to throw themselves off a huge cliff when they have no clue as to whether they'll survive. Utterly stunning. thank you, BBC. Again.  

Catastrophe

Gradually I adapt to the world of catch-up. Disappointed with the bitter, hollow world of The Circuit, I dimly remember "Sharon Horgan used to be better than this" and seek out Catastrophe, of which I had watched the first two series. Somehow, I hadn't kept going, but there they were, episodes 3 - 6, just waiting for me to catch up, which I do over the next two hours. Gorgeous - warm, witty, filthy, beautifully balanced between the two of them, with a lovely mix of affection and all-out warfare. Just a delight. and it's there to go back to, the next time current offerings disappoint. 

The Watchman

Oh dear. the familiar heartbreak, as you watch TV drama which looked as though it might be really good...I am a huge fan of Stephen Graham. I've been a huge fan since he dominated a TV drama about soldiers in Afghanistan, and sustained (very varied) exposure in Boardwalk Empire, This is England and The Secret Agent have done nothing to dilute my enthusiasm.

So tonight's one-off TV drama shows him gradually losing control inside his booth, monitoring video surveillance cameras which show him how his clumsy good intentions lead inexorably towards tragedy. Lots of solo stuff, close-up on great actor emoting - sad reminders of Ben Whishaw in London Spy - which I also hated. It's not the actor's fault. There just isn't the quality in the script to make that kind of detailed attention worth while. It's  a half-OK idea, carried out crudely, and a sad waste of a wonderful actor. .