Passing Time

Film

Most films, as usual, were seen on the small screen, but I did get out to the pictures for A Complete Unknown, A Real Pain, Queer, Macbeth and Bridget Jones. There’s the usual mix of drama (special mention to The Outrun, A Real Pain and The Quiet Girl), biopic (notwithstanding my issues with the genre – and special mention to A Complete Unknown which sidestepped them nicely), scifi/speculative fiction (Quiet Place Day One probably the best of this group), and films about race (The Nickel Boys and One Night in Miami stand out). Good to see the number of female directors: Mary Nighy for Alice, Darling (her debut), Zoe Kravitz for Blink Twice (also a debut), Nora Fingscheidt for The Outrun, Gina Prince-Bythewood for The Old Guard, Regina King for One Night in Miami (another debut), Ava duVernay for Origin – and to note that of these, four are women of colour.

I’ve tried to avoid spoilers but you take your chances. As always, I’ve omitted anything I gave up on in the first third, and anything which was so purely mediocre that I couldn’t think of anything to say about it.

The Affair

Adaptation of Simon Mawer’s excellent novel, The Glass Room. Frustrating really, it managed to make the timelines really confusing, and one whole strand of the story (that of the nanny with whom the husband had the titular affair) is denied the development that Mawer gives it. The performances are good, but it didn’t really work.

Alice, Darling

Anna Kendrick is excellent in this account of coercive control, and female friendship. The picture is built up subtly – we, and her friends, notice Alice’s tension each time her phone buzzes, her fiddling with her hair (we don’t immediately realise how much of it she is pulling out). A road trip with those friends is the catalyst for realisation and intervention, shown without undue melodrama, and not over simplified. I must watch Kendrick in something where she isn’t in peril from horrible men though – the last thing I saw her in was Woman of the Hour…

Blink Twice

Originally called Pussy Island…  Guardian’s reviewer says, ‘It’s about misogyny and abuse and memory and materialism and gender performance and many other things that would be a spoiler to mention. It’s therefore less of a plate and more of a buffet, and while it might be beautifully served, it’s a film about excess that suffers from it too, a case of too much leaving us with too little.’ For myself, I’m not sure whether it explained too much or too little – certainly, whilst there was a lot that I enjoyed, I had questions.

A Bridge Too Far

I must have seen this before, given my penchant for WW2 films, but it didn’t seem over-familiar, and it was very striking how the various misjudgements and miscommunications which contributed to the tragedy of the Arnhem battles are shown so clearly, not glossed over or justified in any way. I was prompted to read Anthony Beevor’s account of the campaign, which confirmed that the film was surprisingly (given the general track record of war movies) accurate.

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

Very, very funny. Laugh out loud (I snorted a couple of times, which was OK because I wasn’t the only one in the cinema to do so), but with a lot of heart. As a widow, albeit rather a lot older than Bridget, I found some of the scenes really moving – and again, I wasn’t the only one sniffling audibly. You could see where the plot was going, of course (and after all, what sane woman would settle for Leo Woodall’s Roxter – a gorgeous puppy in human form – when Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Mr Walliker is around?) but that mattered not at all.

Captain America: Brave New World

I have yet to fully acclimatise myself to new Cap. Of course, I knew, from Endgame and The Falcon & the Winter Soldier, that ‘my’ Cap was gone, but I still have to remind myself from time to time. However, I love Anthony Mackie and I’m invested. My only problem with the plot was the references to bits of lore that I either had never come across (I’m not familiar with the comics at all), or only come across in The Eternals, which I recall I largely dozed through (maybe not entirely its fault). Leaving that aside, I thoroughly enjoyed the film.

Civil War

This wasn’t what I expected – I was anticipating more of an action movie, but this was thoughtful and introspective about journalistic ethics, amongst other things, whilst not pulling its punches when it came to the violence. Our protagonists are war correspondents, specifically, led by Kirsten Dunst as a hardened reporter who has seen the worst that human beings can do to one another, and been damaged by what she has seen. All four of the group that we follow through the film in some way need the adrenalin of following the violence and recording the horror. The titular civil war plays out, but it could be any conflict, anywhere, and these people would be there.

A Complete Unknown

I’d expected to enjoy this with reservations, given my issues with so many biopics. But I loved it. Dylan does not lend himself to the traditional biopic format. Here we learn nothing about his life before he rocks up in New York, already a singer with a few of his own songs ready or bubbling away. Not to mention the fact that Dylan told people all sorts of tales about his life before New York, most of which were fairly obviously untrue – he invented himself as he went along. There are no personal crises – for his unfortunate girlfriends perhaps, and for Seeger and others who saw what they wanted to see in him and felt betrayed – but not for Bob. It’s interesting to compare with director James Mangold’s earlier biopic, Walk the Line, from twenty years previously, also an excellent film with superb performances but which follows the format pretty faithfully – and of course Cash, the subject of that movie, has a supporting role here. Chalamet was wonderful, as were the rest of the cast (esp. Edward Norton as Seeger, and Monica Barbaro as Baez). And the real triumph was the way in which the music told so much of the story – not just the lyrics, but the music, and the performance of the music.

Doubt

Superb, subtle, troubling and with so many outstanding performances. In particular, this was the movie that made Viola Davis a big name, albeit in a small part – she blazed out of the screen, and somehow unsettled everything, in just a few moments.

Frida

The Roger Ebert site review says that ‘Sometimes we feel as if the film careens from one colorful event to another without respite, but sometimes it must have seemed to Frida Kahlo as if her life did, too’. And that is one of the problems with biopics generally, but even more so with a life as full of drama and colour as Kahlo’s. Salma Hayek and Alfred Molina are great as Kahlo and Rivera – they are both ‘a lot’, infuriating and mercurial, and their relationship is as tempestuous as that suggests, with both parties being pretty damn unreasonable at least some of the time. The most notable thing, apart from the performances, is the way the director uses visual imagery – a bluebird flying from Frida’s hand during the trolley crash, and gold leaf falling on her cast.

The Gorge

Daft and thoroughly enjoyable scifi actioner. It rapidly became apparent that it would not do to think too rigorously about the plot, so I just went with it.

His Three Daughters

And what a trio! Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen bicker and grieve as the tensions in caring for and even spending time with their dying father bring all sorts of memories and misunderstandings to the surface. Brilliant.

The Holdovers

Gentle without being sentimental, this was the perfect film for New Year’s Day as we curled up on the sofa after too little sleep and slightly too much wine the night before. It’s not a feelgood movie exactly – there’s too much pain here for that – but it’s sympathetic and hopeful and with marvellous performances from Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph in particular.

I, Tonya

Multiple layers of unreliable narration, gobsmacking ice-skating, and bravura performances from Margot Robbie and Allison Janney – hugely enjoyable.

The Invisible Woman

I watched this, by coincidence, shortly after watching Priscilla (see below) and was struck by the similarities, despite the very different setting. Of course I’m not comparing Dickens to Elvis exactly, but both men used their age and even more their fame to control the younger woman. The title of this film could apply equally aptly to Priscilla as to Ellen Ternan. If anything, this account downplays Dickens’ cruelty to his wife, but Ralph Fiennes doesn’t sanitise his relationships, and Joanna Scanlan powerfully conveys her devastation at being cast aside.

Jude

Dark and doom-laden adaptation of Hardy’s darkest and most doom-laden novel. Christopher Eccleston and Kate Winslet are both excellent, and it doesn’t feel melodramatic, because we feel the accumulating weight of all the forces that are against them, individually or together, so that the devastating denouement seems inevitable. Not a fun watch but exceptionally well done.

Macbeth

National Theatre production with David Tennant and Cush Jumbo – the performances are outstanding, as one would expect. The whole thing is stripped down in terms of the set and streamlined in terms of the absence of act and scene breaks. The latter has one slight disadvantage – there are a couple of bits in the script which don’t totally make sense without a break to indicate the passage of even a little bit of time – but it’s very minor. I’ve seen some superb Macbeths on screen over the years – Denzil Washington & Frances McDormand, Michael Fassbender & Marion Cotillard, Christopher Eccleston & Niamh Cusack, and going back further in time, Jon Finch & Francesca Annis and this may be the finest (with Denzil & Frances a very strong contender).

No. 24

Norwegian WW2 drama focusing on a hero of the Resistance. What makes this distinctive is the framing it gives, as he talks decades later at an event for schoolchildren, and fields difficult questions about what he did for the cause. It doesn’t give easy answers and that’s refreshing.

The Nickel Boys

Powerful adaptation by RaMell Ross of Colson Whitehead’s brilliant novel, which uses the device that we see everything from a first-person perspective, and the narrative builds through these flashes of imagery or memory, in a way that’s both deeply disturbing and very moving. I won’t say more about this because it isn’t a gimmick, it’s at the heart of what happens, and you need to see it to get the full impact.

The Old Guard

Intriguing, intelligent and entertaining superhero movie about a hard-bitten team of unkillable soldiers, which gives us plenty of action but also develops the characters and explores what it does to them to be killed, over and over again and to see each other being killed over and over again. There was talk of a sequel, which I’d happily watch, but it’s not emerged yet.

One Night in Miami

This is brilliant. Sam Cooke, Malcolm X, Cassius Clay (shortly to become Muhammad Ali) and NFL star Jim Brown did actually meet up on one night in Miami, and this is their imagined conversation. It’s long on talk and short on action but this is not in any way a failing when the talk is as dynamic, as full of tension and pain and hope as this. All four performances  (Kingsley Ben-Adir as Malcolm, Eli Goree as Cassius, Aldis Hodge as Jim and Leslie Odom Jr as Sam) are outstanding. Superb direction from Regina King.

The Order

Solid and compelling drama about neo-Nazis in the US. It eschews melodrama for understatement, despite the highly dramatic nature of the events, with strong performances from Jude Law and Nicholas Hoult in particular.

Origin

Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste was ground-breaking, and this film (directed by Ava duVernay) tells her story, of the research and writing that led to its publication, at a time of great personal trauma for her. Excellent performance from Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor as Wilkerson, and it’s a fascinating and moving drama.

The Outrun

Saoirse Ronan is extraordinary. When isn’t she? This is a non-linear narrative of addiction and (hoped for) recovery, set for the most part on Orkney, where Rona confronts her addiction and her relationship with her parents (one bipolar/alcoholic, the other having found God) and the uncompromising landscape. It’s never sentimental, often very low key (in the Orkney scenes at least). And Saoirse Ronan is extraordinary.

Paddington in Peru

Not entirely necessary, but thoroughly enjoyable. Antonio Banderas and Olivia Colman were clearly having a blast.

The Piano Lesson

Based on one of August Wilson’s stage plays, this is a supernatural drama, with a fabulous cast (Samuel L. Jackson, Danielle Deadwyler, John David Washington amongst others). It has been described as ferocious Southern Gothic, and it’s intense and moving.

Priscilla

Another ‘invisible woman’ (see above). We see Elvis through her eyes, as a lovestruck teenager, and then as a fearful, isolated and lonely wife, as he cheats on her, encourages her to take a variety of pills, keeps her away from his life on tour and from friendships with contemporaries – controls all aspects of her life. She is touchingly portrayed by Cailee Spaeny (also seen in Civil War), who conveys her naivety, her headstrong teenage determination to be with Elvis, and her painful realisation that this relationship will never be what she dreamed it would be.

Queer

An adaptation of William Burroughs’ semi-autobiographical account, with Daniel Craig on mesmerising form, seedy and needy, as a gay (queer) writer travelling in Mexico and Ecuador and picking up random men before falling for a younger man. Reviewers variously describe the sexual content as explicit or coy, which presumably depends on what you’ve been used to seeing on screen previously, though it does remind me how we are all inured to straight sex scenes on TV and in film and how much less so to gay sex. But I wasn’t really expecting the veering into dream and hallucinatory sequences, and the later parts of the film were sometimes baffling, sometimes alarming, sometimes gross… My brother (previously seen in Conclave) was in this as well though to my shame, and despite knowing that he was a barman (makes a change from clerical roles) I failed to spot him.  Lesley Manville turns up, in an extraordinary and vanity-free performance that just shows what a marvel she is. I was thinking on and off throughout Queer of Under the Volcano (the book, rather than the film), and how that left me feeling quite woozy, as if I’d been overdoing things myself.

The Quiet Girl

A quiet film, a perfect film. Everything in this adaptation of Claire Keegan’s Foster is about the tiny details, the repetition of images, and very little is about what is said. Catherine Clinch’s performance as 12-year-old Cait is extraordinary. The end made me sob but along the way I was moved by those tiny details, Cait having her hair brushed with such tender care, a biscuit left on a kitchen table without any words being spoken (and that biscuit being squirrelled away in a pocket rather than scoffed straight away), Cait’s joy in her daily runs to the post box at the end of the lane. Wonderful.

The Quiet Place Day One

The Quiet Place launched us straight into a world where noise was deadly dangerous, and survivors had adapted to live with as little sound as possible. Here we see how this came about. It’s not a prequel in the sense that it focuses on the family at the centre of the original movie; here we see Lupita N’yongo and Joseph Quinn navigating a terrifying new world, and it’s an excellent and genuinely heart-stopping drama even though we know from the outset what the characters don’t, that silence is the only way to survive.

A Real Pain

Outstanding. The volatile emotional shifts of Kieran Culkin’s Benji take the audience with him – we laugh out loud and then are reduced to silence and to tears, at one moment identifying with and admiring him, and at the next understanding why Eisenberg’s David finds him so exhausting and frustrating. It frequently subverts our expectations, using Benji as a catalyst, and unsettles our assumptions about how one should respond to Holocaust sites. I loved the very low-key scene where they go to lay stones at the apartment where their grandmother lived. And the ending.

Rocketman

This one gets past my biopic problem by being fantastical rather than ploddingly realistic, and Taron Egerton does a fabulous job with the role of Elton John.

Santocielo

Endearingly silly film about angels and an unexpected pregnancy. Featuring Aidan Hallett as an angel.

The Six Triple Eight

The story sounded, and was fascinating, but sadly the treatment is so clichéd, the script is either inspirational speechmaking or folksy girly chitchat from a rather stereotyped group of characters, and the central topic, of just how a battalion of African-American women managed to turn around a monumental backlog of mail to get letters to soldiers on the front line and families back home, gets a much more cursory treatment than it deserves. It wasn’t just determination to prove that they could do it, bloody hard work, or loyalty to their commanding officer (an excellent Kerry Washington) – it was the imaginative application of skills they’d learned in their pre-army lives, and I really wanted to know much more about that, rather than yet another scene with our heroine weeping in the Ladies over her lost fiancé.

The Sound of Metal

Deafness and signing has been a bit of a theme in this year’s watching – see below for Code of Silence and Reunion. Here, Riz Ahmed’s Ruben has to come to terms with hearing loss, a shattering experience for a musician. As the Guardian’s reviewer says, he describes ‘the physicality of signing – of using the whole body as an expressive tool.  … While Ruben may hide behind his words, Ahmed has never been more emotionally expressive than when communicating through ASL.’

Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

Very funny, very clever, and the perfect follow-up to a family Christmas meal.

Television

Loads of crime here (as per). A lot of it is pretty standard fare, but there’s some that stand out, notably Fargo, Code of Silence, Reunion and The Madness, and in the realm of true crime, A Cruel Love. I do a lot of grumbling below (as per) about the clichés that infect almost everything in this genre. The scene where our hero is trying to download something from a computer that’s going really slow, and the direction makes it look as if the bad guy is right outside the room and must catch them at it but no! Bad guy comes into the room and there’s no sign of our hero, or his/her USB. The way apparently sensible people decide that it’s sensible to withhold absolutely vital information or circumvent the rules when it will quite obviously cause massive problems for them and everyone else when their lies or evasions are exposed. If the plot is solid enough, the performances persuasive enough and the writing (particularly the writing of character) clever enough, even these annoyances can be brushed aside. But all too often I get hacked off, and start heckling from the sofa and it does detract from my enjoyment. But nonetheless, if there’s a new crime drama out, I’ll probably give it a go.

There’s been some outstanding SF in the form of Andor, The Last of Us and Who, and outstanding drama with Adolescence. And just the one proper comedy – Shrinking. Looking at the list, I should probably watch more comedy, though I did actually laugh a lot at Fargo, Department Q, and White Lotus…

Special shout out to some actors whose work I’ve particularly enjoyed: Aimee Lee Wood in Toxic Town and The White Lotus, Rose Ayling-Ellis in Reunion and Code of Silence, and Robyn Malcolm in After the Party and The Survivors. And a sad farewell to some that we’ve lost since the start of 2025, each of whom played key roles in long-running series that we loved: George Wendt (Norm!), Loretta Swit (Hotlips Houlihan) and, heartbreakingly, Michelle Trachtenberg, Dawn in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who was only 39.

Adolescence

I’m not sure that I have much to add to the many column inches that this has generated. It is a superlative drama, not because of the technical triumph of the continuous shot, but because of the way it uses that technique to give the story breathing space, not rushing from one moment or location to the next. The performances are of course brilliant, and heartbreaking.

After the Party

Excellent NZ psychological drama, in which we don’t know for sure if a crime has been committed, and in which the main protagonist (a glorious performance by Robyn Malcolm) is – intentionally – extremely annoying and prompted a lot of shouting at the telly, but remained absolutely convincing throughout.

Andor

I’ve never been a full-on Star Wars person, even though I’ve seen all of the films (apart from that other trilogy which I understand I don’t need to bother with), and enjoyed all of them, especially Rogue One, for which Andor is a prequel (R1 is in turn a prequel to A New Hope – have I got that right? Someone will undoubtedly tell me if not). Anyways, I’m not (evidently) totally au fait with Star Wars lore, and so have been selective in which spin-off series I’ve watched. Of those, this is the best – great storytelling, great, complicated characters, real tension. And great performances from a rather classy cast. Lovely to see Thierry Godard (previously known as Gilou from Spiral) pop up as one of the rebels on Ghorman, and I liked the fact that the Ghormanese (?) sounded like they were speaking French even though they obviously weren’t!

An’t Ei-lean (The Island)

Notable for being largely in Gaelic, with sub-titles. A decent crime drama, with the usual ingredients – including people behaving with unfathomable pinheadery (did our heroine really imagine that her past links with the victim and family would remain undiscovered if she investigated the crime?).

Black Doves

The body count is sky high, the violence quite startling, and it’s all extremely entertaining, with a lot of rather black humour, and excellent turns from Keira Knightley, Sarah Lancashire, and Ben Whishaw (a very long way from Paddington).

The Black Forest Murders

A good, solid German crime drama based on a series of real murders. It’s understated and unsensational and conveys the tedium and frustration of investigation, without being either tedious or frustrating (see also Breakthrough, in a similar vein).

Black Mirror

As usual, this latest season is a mixed bag. Personally, I loved Hotel Reverie (which features on some people’s least fave episode list, but there you go), Common People, Bete Noire (though I wasn’t totally on board for the ending) and Eulogy but wasn’t convinced by Plaything and USS Callister was fun but not as good as I’d anticipated. The casts are always stellar, and it’s at its best when the tech is not only interesting but imaginable as an extrapolation of what can be done now.

Black Snow

Australian cold case crime series – I watched Season 2 having not seen 1. Entertaining enough, but the lead detective is a pain – insubordinate yob with a messed up personal life who nevertheless ends up solving the case by breaking all the rules, which is hardly a fresh take.

The Bombing of PanAm 103

I haven’t seen the other recent dramatisation of these events, so can’t compare their respective approaches, but this one walked a slightly uneasy line between a clear focus on the investigation, with its many dead ends, communication breakdowns and political minefields, and the personal stories of the bereaved. At heart it was a procedural drama, and most at home in that arena. The opening episode, portraying the crash itself, was extremely well handled, and movingly conveyed the shock, confusion and grief of the relatives of passengers, and the local people who lost homes and family members. But the attempt to keep that thread running through the rest of the drama was less successful and whilst it stayed the right side of maudlin, it did feel a little like an obligation, and not the real focus of interest. Whether I would have been persuaded by the other dramatisation that the wrong conclusion was reached in the investigation I don’t know. And whether this drama was ‘necessary’ as some reviewers asked – well, how much of the drama I watch is in any sense necessary? In the case of dramatisations of real events, I’d say that they do serve a purpose. I remember Lockerbie vividly, not through any personal connection but just through watching the news around that time – but my recollections are very fragmentary – anyone even ten years or so younger than me might well barely remember it – and it was historically and politically significant.

The Breakthrough

Swedish drama about an unsolved murder and the dogged commitment of a police officer to find the perpetrator. Low key and subtle.

Call the Midwife

I’d seen the odd episode, but mainly the Christmas specials which inevitably ladled on the sentiment a bit lavishly given the season. So I started at the beginning and worked my way through from 1957 to 1971, and was absolutely fascinated, and impressed by how hard-hitting it often is, even if it tends to leave one with at least glimmers of hope and possibilities of redemption. Given that I cry every time I see a baby being born on screen, this meant at least three guaranteed weeps per episode, and that’s not reckoning with the wider storylines, thalidomide, backstreet abortions, wretched poverty and so on. I found the treatment of religious faith fascinating too, and strangely unalienating to me as an atheist viewer. I could do without Vanessa Redgrave’s pious opening and closing words though – for the early episodes, where old Jennie was reflecting on young Jennie’s experiences, this was fine, but once that connection was lost, all we had was platitudes and pieties, and Redgrave’s voice adds way more gravitas to the words than they can carry. However, I will be there for as many series as there are, will undoubtedly weep in every episode and if I have to grit my teeth for the occasional sentimentality overload that’s a small price to pay.

Code of Silence

Two thrillers on TV this half-year, in which deafness and lip-reading play a huge part (see also Sound of Metal in the film list above). See below for Reunion – both star Rose Ayling-Ellis, whose star has risen considerably since Strictly brought her to the attention of non-Eastenders fans, and she’s superb in both. This one was particularly fascinating as it showed the process of lip-reading, how some sounds are impossible to distinguish from one another, so the lip-reader has to construct the words by combining what is clear with what is likely given the context. It’s very impressive. The plot veered into improbability and thriller clichés at various points but maintained a high level of tension to the end. And whilst Alison did behave recklessly at various points, her motivation – a mixture of the intoxicating effect of being really listened to and taken seriously, and her attraction to one of the people she’s being asked to spy on – was plausible (thanks to Ayling-Ellis’s performance as much as to the script).

A Cruel Love

Excellent account of Ruth Ellis’s story, with a great performance by Lucy Boynton in the lead role. Coincidentally I was reading Nadifa Mohamed’s The Fortune Men whilst watching this series (not literally at the same time, you understand) about a miscarriage of justice in which a Somali man was executed for a murder he had not committed. Ellis, of course, did kill David Blakeley, but that she was hanged for it was as much to do with society’s disapproval of her personal morality as with the strength of the case for first-degree murder.

The Day

This Belgian series portrays the events – v dramatic events, starting with a robbery and the taking of hostages – of one day, in twelve episodes, by showing us the same incidents from different perspectives (the police, the hostages, the perpetrators). It maintains the tension pretty well until the final couple of episodes by which point I admit I was starting to weary a little. 

Department Q

By rights I should have been annoyed by this. The lead character is a misanthropic maverick who never does what he is supposed to, is rude to absolutely everyone and gets himself into unnecessary pickles en route to (of course) solving the case. The cast is great but as so many crime dramas show, that’s unfortunately not always enough. It turns out though that when the dialogue is this sharp and funny (very dark humour), when the characters behave with consistency even if they are consistently being dicks, and when there is, despite all the above, real heart in some of the relationships, I can thoroughly enjoy the ride, and will look forward to another season.

Dickensian

I have no idea why I didn’t watch this when it came out in 2015, and even less idea why it was cancelled after only one season. I loved every minute of it, and Dickens’ world is so rich and complex that they could have continued to mine it for ideas as good as these. But at least they did this, with a splendid cast, beautifully written, and a joy for anyone who loves the books.

Doctor Who

I loved Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor. He brought something different, something joyous, a smile that could light up galaxies, a lightness that belied his capacity for anger. I had hoped for a much longer tenure, but I guess Who got him just as his star was rising, and there were too many opportunities out there for him to resist. We don’t know (at least at the time of writing) for how long RTD had known that he’d only have Gatwa for two seasons, so whether urgent rewrites were required to factor in a regeneration, or whether that was always the plan. And we don’t know (at the time of writing) whether Billie Piper is returning as the Doctor or in some other capacity (the credits didn’t say, as they have done in previous regen episodes, introducing BP ‘as the Doctor’…). All that aside, Gatwa’s second season was just the right mix of complicated ideas, humour, tech and legend. I particularly loved ‘The Story and the Engine’, with its Lagos setting and use of West African folklore (and names – Abena means girl born on a Tuesday, which I know because I am an Abena, or would have been had I been born Akan/Ashanti). Allons-y, I hope, to more Who, whoever the Doc turns out to be. But I’ll miss this Doc.

Dope Girls

This reminded me of Kate Atkinson’s Shrines of Gaiety and indeed, I discovered that both are based on the same real woman, Kate Meyrick, who ran nightclubs in Soho during the 20s and 30s, and was arrested and imprisoned on a regular basis. The series takes liberties with the historical Meyrick but the setting is vividly conveyed, and the performances are great. Julianne Nicholson’s performance as Meyrick (Kate Galloway in the series) also had quite strong Shauna from Yellowjackets vibes at times.

Fake

We know from the outset really that Joe is a no-good SOB. That Birdie chooses not to see the red flags is, however, understandable in context. And if the series hadn’t been called Fake, would we have seen them quite so early or so clearly? The emotional tension is built up skilfully and the performances are great – and whilst we aren’t in any doubt that Joe is a wrong ‘un, we don’t know quite what he’s up to, and the drama doesn’t give us easy or tidy resolutions. Very well done.

Families Like Ours

Brilliant drama, set in a near-future Denmark where climate change has forced the country to, in effect, shut down and its citizens to migrate to whichever countries will offer them a home. It’s a ‘what if’ narrative, and it tackles lots of aspects – the scope for corruption as those who know what’s coming try to sell up before other people realise that property and land will soon be worthless, the resistance of other countries to an influx of climate refugees, and the smaller scale impact on families as members are forced to take different routes to safety, and some to take huge risks to reach each other. What has remained with me, more than the personal dramas, is the way it portrays the impossible choices, the inexorable sequences of events and the way in which potential sanctuaries very quickly pull up the drawbridge.

Fargo

One of the best of the series spinning off from the original Coen Brothers film. Juno Temple is wonderful in the lead role, and right from the start, I’m rooting for her, as I did for Frances McDormand’s Marge, and literally sitting on the edge of my seat and holding my breath during the tensest bits of the plot. As always there’s lots of dark humour here too.

Get Millie Black

A cop series set in Jamaica, with a cop who’s on a personal mission, never knowingly does what her superiors tell her to, and so on. Excellent plot, nevertheless, and a protagonist who is convincing even when annoying.

I, Jack Wright

Cracking cast play various members of a family whose members may or may not be involved in the death of patriarch Jack Wright, but who are all up to something and lying to pretty much everyone else about everything. It’s very clearly set up for a second series and I’ll be there for it. Written by Chris Lang, the writer behind Unforgotten which is consistently one of the best series out there.

The Last of Us

Utterly gripping, and for those of us who have never played the game, there are absolute gut punches in this second season. I won’t say more for fear of spoilers, but it’s beautifully done, and Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey are superb as the two main leads.

The Madness

Colman Domingo is splendid in this paranoia fest as a man who finds himself being framed for murder, and we’re with him on every step of the way, as he tries to stay just ahead of the various forces who are closing in on him. It’s breathless and thrilling, and whether or not it’s entirely plausible, we don’t really fret, because we’re invested.

Malpractice

This starts off brilliantly as a study in just about controlled chaos on a psychiatric and an obstetrics ward, where staff are struggling to meet the needs of challenging patients whilst managing their own personal crises and pressure from management. The main protagonist behaves idiotically but notwithstanding that there are real issues and it’s all extremely tense. Towards the end it does get a bit generic thriller, with a whistleblower rocking up at the very last minute to save the day, and a dramatic showdown where the bad guys are exposed. That tends to sideline the more complicated (and very interesting) questions about how patients with diagnosed or undiagnosed mental illnesses are treated in a medical context, or how life and death decisions can be made in complex situations, or about resourcing of psychiatric care, etc etc. But overall, a decent medical drama.

Miss Austen

A very different pace to much of the above (and below), with the ever-marvellous Keeley Hawes as Jane’s sister Cassandra, addressing the mystery of why many of Jane’s letters were destroyed after her death. It’s speculative, of course, but persuasive, and beautifully done. I also watched an excellent BBC documentary series, Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius and am hankering after a full Austen re-read – perhaps starting with Mansfield Park, the one I did for A level that I haven’t re-read since.

Missing You

It’s another Harlan Coban thriller. Plot holes aplenty, great cast rather wasted on shallow characterisation and clunky dialogue. You know what you’re getting with these, and they pass the time.

The Night Agent

Not a patch on the first series (with which I had some issues) – disbelief simply could not be suspended as the improbabilities multiplied with each episode, and our hero’s exceptionally annoying girlfriend behaved idiotically at every turn. I watched to the end, inevitably, but will try to resist series 3 if there is one.

The One that Got Away

A clever, complex narrative (an English language version of the Welsh drama, Cleddau), not without some of the usual crime drama tropes, but they’re used intelligently. I did want to shout at both the leads, but particularly Richard Harrington’s Rick, quite often, but they were both consistently drawn and convincingly played.

Patience/Astrid: Murders in Paris

Patience is a British remake of French series Astrid: Murders in Paris, and some episodes of the former follow very closely the original plot lines as well as the premiss, which is the semi-official recruitment of an autistic young woman who works in the archives in active investigation of crimes because of the way she observes minute details and perceives patterns. Ella May Purvis, who plays Patience, is herself autistic, and I found her performance particularly persuasive, and often very touching.

Prime Target

This started off well, with an intriguingly abstract concept (to do with prime numbers, though I can’t claim I entirely understood) but meandered off into standard thriller territory disappointingly quickly, with all the usual tropes deployed. The performances are good and the script decent, at least.

Protection

This had a cracking cast – Siobhan Finneran in the lead – and again an interesting premiss, this time about a breach of security regarding a family in witness protection – but again it got mired in too many of the standard crime drama elements. Nonetheless, it was pretty gripping.

Reunion

Initially I noted this one as a must-watch because it was filmed in and around Sheffield, including some locations very close to home. But in the end, I was so focused on watching the drama that I forgot to look out for the places I expected to recognise. As noted elsewhere (see Code of Silence and Sound of Metal) deafness has been an unexpected recurring theme in recent weeks. The protagonist has been failed by the education system, manipulated by the justice system and failed again by the prison and probation systems (‘oh dear, we forgot to book a BSL interpreter’, is a recurring motif, and the consequences of this are from from trivial). There’s a thread of real anger running through the plot and reflected in the powerful central performance by Matthew Gurney.

The Rig

Series 2 of this sci-fi environmental thriller (shades of John Wyndham) was let down by a terribly clunky script. I don’t remember Series 1 being as bad as this, and I am very sensitive to clunks. I suspect a third series is on the cards, but I might not bother, which is a shame because there are interesting ideas in there.

SAS Rogue Heroes

I loved both series of this. It’s odd in a way – if I met any of these mad bastards in real life I’d want to give them a wide berth, but the series humanises them without whitewashing the mad bastardry. The history of the invasion of Sicily and the battle for Termoli wasn’t familiar to me, and I know that the disclaimer broadcast at the start of every episode means that I can’t rely uncritically on this as a historical source, but it was interesting, and broadly accurate enough, nonetheless. Watching this kind of intense action heroics is something I’ve always enjoyed, and the WW2 context allows me to enjoy it without qualms, because these mad bastards are risking everything in the fight against a real evil.

See No Evil

This is from 2006, with Maxine Peake as Myra Hindley. I wasn’t sure I wanted to watch it but the cast (Maxine Peake in particular) suggested to me that it would not be schlocky or voyeuristic. We see events through the eyes of Myra’s sister Maureen, and her husband Dave – the latter was implicated early on in the murder of Edward Evans, but then cleared of involvement, and the impact of the crimes on both of their lives was huge and long-lasting. When we first meet Hindley and Brady, they have already murdered and so the only murder that we see (in glimpses) dramatically is that of Evans, as it was witnessed by Dave. This decision means that the focus is not on what Hindley and Brady did, but on the investigation and the repercussions of the case.

Shrinking

This made me laugh out loud more than anything else I watched on TV this year and also made me cry quite a lot. The cast is brilliant, the dialogue snappy and rude and funny, the humour and the heartbreak nicely balanced and interwoven. Harrison Ford is an absolute joy.

Strike: The Ink Black Heart

Based on by far the weakest of Robert Galbraith (aka J K Rowling)’s detective novels, the TV version does what it can but isn’t able to stop it being both muddled and rather tedious. It’s all about a cartoon but too many of the characters are cartoonish.

The Survivors

Adapted from one of Jane Harper’s excellent thrillers, this gets its claws into you right from the start and doesn’t let go. It’s not just about twists and cliffhangers, it’s about the legacy of a crime – grief and guilt – and how that shapes and twists relationships and communities.

This City is Ours

The territory is familiar – a crime family facing issues of succession and change and jostling for power amongst the younger generation. The cast is excellent – Sean Bean is always hugely watchable, and I’m always absurdly pleased when he retains his Yorkshire accent( even though here the setting is Scouse). And whilst it doesn’t offer any huge surprises in terms of the outworking of the plot (no, you can’t just walk away from OC, particularly when it’s a family business) it achieves real tension along the way, and some nicely nuanced characterisation.

Toxic Town

Based pretty closely on the real court case about a cluster of infant abnormalities resulting from toxic waste. Some characters are composites as is normal in these things, and it plays out v much like Mr Bates, especially in the scene where they’re thinking no one will turn up to the first meeting, and then there’s a trickle of people, and then a flood… The central performances are excellent – Jodie Whitaker, Claudia Jessie and Aimee Lou Wood as the three mothers at the heart of the case, and Rory Kinnear as the lawyer who decides to take the case on.

Towards Zero

Stylish and engaging Agatha Christie adaptation with a fab cast having a grand old time, and the dénouement keeping me, at least, guessing till the end. Christie at her best (for me usually the Marples rather than the Poirots) has a kind of darkness that lingers with you after the whodunnit question is answered and this isn’t one of those, but most entertaining.

The Vanishings

This has a basis in some true, unsolved cases where women disappeared. But unfortunately the series just uses that as an excuse for a clichéd women-in-peril set up, with far too many sub-plots and red herrings, characters behaving with unfathomable pinheadery and a ludicrously improbable dénouement that clearly sets up a Season 2 which I hope I will have the strength of character to resist.

Vera

Ah, Vera, I will miss you. A great character, with a strong supporting cast (including many who’ve gone on to even greater things, like Ben Kingsley-Adir and Cush Jumbo) and consistently well-written and structured plots. Refreshingly, the murders aren’t the baroque constructs of a fiendishly clever serial killer but rooted in people’s chaotic past and present lives (as with Unforgotten). And the landscapes are glorious.

Virdee

Speaking of ‘the baroque constructs of a fiendishly clever serial killer’… I was really, really disappointed in this. The plot holes were so numerous and so sizeable, the fiendishly clever serial killer’s motivation and intentions were so muddled, and it reminded me at times of the Bond movies where the evil mastermind intent on world domination, having Bond at his mercy, hangs about explaining things and generally engaging in displacement activity, thus giving Bond time to escape. The setting for Virdee was great, many of the characters were great, but the plot just got sillier and sillier and I lost patience.

The White Lotus

I caught on to this rather late, when everyone was talking about series 3 and a friend was incredulous that I’d never watched it. Huge, huge fun, with lots of characters to boo and hiss at (a minimum of one massively entitled man-baby per season, in particular), but always a couple to identify with or at least root for. I wasn’t very successful in avoiding spoilers (the perils of catching on to things rather late), so some of the shocks were not as shocking as they might have been, but the cast was outstanding, and I had a grand time.

Zero Day

I’m not sure I enjoyed this quite as much as Lucy Mangan, who described it as ‘first and foremost an astonishing amount of fun – firmly grounded by De Niro and his portrait of a good man struggling to do the right thing in a world that offers corruption at worst, and only compromise at best’. But it was fun, and De Niro was a blast, even if the denouement didn’t entirely convince.

Documentary

The Balkans: Europe’s Forgotten Frontier

Not a travel programme, as one might guess from the presenter. Katya Adler focuses on history (mostly very recent) and politics to explore the various new nations that make up the Balkans. Very interesting, mostly new territory for me.

Britain Under the Nazis: The Forgotten Occupation

I knew very little about the occupation of the Channel Islands, though I do remember a book I read as a child, set on a fictional island nearby, and written in 1941, about the early stages of invasion and occupation (Mary Treadgold’s We Couldn’t Leave Dinah). It seemed surprising that so little has been written about it, given that the islanders were the only Brits to experience occupation of their homes, and that their experiences are, in microcosm, those of occupied peoples in mainland Europe. But given how long it took for the full picture, the shades of grey, to emerge in relation to the experiences across the Channel – initially polarised into splendidly heroic resisters or scoundrelly collaborators, but actually much more complex as people negotiated how to survive – perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. The documentary is very well done – that it leaves me wanting to know more is a tribute rather than a criticism – with dramatised sequences drawn from the wartime diaries of a small number of islanders.

7/7 The London Bombings

Excellent account and analysis of the terrorist attack. Of course I remember the events from the time, but there was a lot here that I hadn’t known, particularly relating to the second, failed attack, and the killing of Jean Charles Menendez. The interviews with victims and first responders are powerful and profoundly moving.

The Lost Women Spies

I wish this had either been straight doc or straight drama. The hybrid approach here resulted (as it often does with these things) in rather wooden dramatic interludes, with frankly awful dialogue. A shame, given the power of the story it’s trying to tell. It would be almost impossible to make an account of the wartime service of Odette Hallowes, Violette Szabo and Noor Inayat Khan dull, and this isn’t, but I winced at the scenes where Atkins and Buckmaster have conversations that seem to consist of one of them saying something and the other repeating it incredulously. And that these were included at the expense of seeing, for example, Inayat Khan’s capture and attempted escapes is bizarre.  

No. 1 on the Call Sheet

A two-parter about the black actors who have achieved that status of no. 1 on the call sheet (even if not always no. 1 on the payroll), featuring, well, pretty much everyone you can think of who’s still with us (and it paid heartfelt and heartbreaking tribute to Chadwick Boseman, who isn’t). It wasn’t the deepest exploration of the issues but it wasn’t just a superficial celebration either, and many of the individual testimonies were very powerful.

Vietnam: The War that Changed America/Turning Point: The Vietnam War

Two fascinating, powerful documentary series. The first focuses on the impact of the war on America and Americans, whilst the second, the latest in the excellent Turning Point series (earlier series have covered 9/11, and the bomb and the Cold War), takes a more straightforward chronological approach, and includes interviews with Viet Cong fighters as well as US veterans. It’s pretty devastating stuff – not just the brutality but the cynicism of those who allowed the war not just to drag on but to escalate.