TV Shows...What are you following?

[Stavros]

Vigil, Season 2 (BBC, January 2024)

The first series was based on a Royal Navy submarine, this one with the 'British' Air Force and their 'assistance' to a Middle Eastern regime (the filming took place in Morocco and the UK). The usual porridge of murder, corruption and lies, lots of money and evil people, and the lead detective who is in a relationship with another woman, about as interesting as, well, porridge on a banana leaf.

The mere fact Dougray Scott is one of the lead characters should set alarm bells ringing, he ruins everything he is in, for the simple reason he cannot act.

Let's hope there are no more vigils, not of this kind anyway.

[Stavros]

Payback (ITV, 2024)

Scotland wahae! Hitchcock often made films about ordinary people thrust into extraordinary situations, usually involving crime. In this version, the nice if anxious mother discovers a dark secret about her husband and is swept up in a drama populated by Scotland's finest if relentlessly boring actors, though none as bad as Dougray Scott. It is actually quite watchable, though I had worked out some of the plot twists before they happened, as it is that kind of show. One also wonders if Scottish dramas would be better if they were based in Dundee, or Ayr?

[bryanferryfan2]

True Detective season 4 on HBO starring Jodie Foster.

[zaphod]

True Detective season 4 on HBO starring Jodie Foster.

Similar to Fargo?

[Stavros]

True Detective season 4 on HBO starring Jodie Foster.

Rave reviews in the UK, but complaints about the music.

[JDunn]

Slow Horses, a quality espionage show starring the excellent Gary Oldman

[Stavros]

Trigger Point (ITV, 2024)

The first series of this drama offered us a bomb disposal officer who is also a detective, a lover, a sister to a nutcase, and thus as remote from real life as can be made, just so we don't take it seriously.

The second season has enough bombs going off to maintain the interest, but I wonder how much they cost. It is currently airing weekly but I binged watched all six episodes. The main story in the end doesn't make much sense, whether you believe a billionaire is recruiting tech-savvy revolutionaries to make even more money than he has, or that a generation born after 2000 would take Paris 1968 as their model of behaviour, when, though less lethal, thank heavens, Extinction Rebellion have been more effective if just as daft as their Parisian avatars.

On one level this does spoil the drama, on the other hand I think these days we expect thrills and spills without any need to be truthful, and I guess it delivers for those who want to be entertained by political violence. How people now think of CCTV, which can be so easily hacked -?- or Drones, I don't know, or whether or not the power grid for a city can be shut down by terrorists. It ought to be the main political talking point, but it won't be given we have politicians so incapable that real issues are secondary to press releases and reputation management, or salvage.

[Stavros]

The Americans (Joe Weisberg, Joel Fields, 2013-2018 )

This extraordinary drama series had a chequered history on UK tv -it was first shown on Saturday evenings on ITV until they changed the scheduling for the second series, and then dropped it. I had to watch it on the web using dubious sources, so I bought the complete DVD set to watch all six seasons with some interesting extras.

Although there were illegals in the US, they didn't do the very illegal things the Jennings couple do, and a lot of is on one level just tv drama not real life, but they followed the transition from Reagan to Gorbachev with the implications in Russia as well as the US and the Russian angle was one of the strongest with Russian actors rather than what the past would have given us, people with fake accents, though Matthew Rhys has quite a strong Welsh accent, and that made sense with him pretending to be American.

I think it is one of the best tv dramas ever, up there with The Wire, and the earlier series of Homeland, both of the latter two having outstanding credits, though others may disagree. Keri Russell was amazing throughout. I believe she is now married to Rhys but have not followed their acting careers.

[Stavros]

The Way (Michael Sheen/Red Seam (The Way) Ltd, 2024)

Ten years in the making, but the key three letter word is not Way, but Why? It isn't even worth a description, it is just so hopelessly poor on every level.

[Stavros]

Passenger (ITV, 2024)

The Gone (BBC, 2024)

I watched Passenger last week, but honestly cannot recall what it was about, only that it was dire, as is also true of an Irish-New Zealand drama, The Gone.

Nice young couple working their way through New Zealand -what could go wrong?, other than corruption, drugs, kidnapping, suicide, murder, and too much Maori singing. Kiri Te Kanawa it ain't. Even worse is the last scene, suggesting the man from Dublin won't be going home soon.