TV REVIEW: Dates - Week 2, Episodes 4 & 5

Dates, Brian Elsley’s drama series currently showing as part of Channel 4’s ‘Mating Season’, seems focused on portraying unusual, difficult and even borderline taboo first dates.

In Episode 4, we meet Erica (Gemma Chan), a shyly beautiful lesbian girl from a strict Chinese background, and watch as she meets Kate (Katie McGrath), a confident woman slightly more used to getting her own way. Despite Kate’s clear suspicion from the outset about how public Erica’s sexuality is, the date gets off to a good start, with the two flirting and drinking cocktails in a trendy bar. A spot of sexy dancing and a roll around in the sheets later, the narrative starts to focus much more on Erica, and the profound effect that her family background is having on her love life. Kate’s hostile reaction and the events that ensue provide one of the more dramatic, yet poignant, episode endings of the series so far. Chan and McGrath are both excellent and playing the coy and ballsy characters respectively, although the episode did feel a little thrown together and under-developed in places.

Episode 5 saw the return of David (Will Mellor) who, still not over Mia (Oona Chaplin) heads out on a date to cheer himself up on his birthday. This time, he meets Ellie (Montanna Thompson) a young, in fact rather younger than she said she was, woman who, despite her charming naiveté, has an apparent and uncomfortable habit of getting right to the point. Needless to say, the date is not all either of them hoped it would be, although David does seem to have a good time despite himself, leading to a level of friendship, if nothing else. Ellie’s insight then in turn causes some rather unexpected consequences. Mellor is awkwardly brilliant as the man caught on a date with someone more than a decade his junior, with Thompson adorably doe-eyed as the unemployed teenager with big ideas. This felt slightly akin to a filler episode, although still well executed and enjoyable to watch.

Despite the slight mid-season slump feel to these episodes, although I hasten to point out that this only means that they are marginally less fabulous than the others, so well written are they all, we’re really starting to grow attached to the characters as an audience, particularly now that we’ve grown used to the series’ premise. This is only added to along the way by the high quality of the writing and performances. Not to mention the relief at times that we’re not stuck on some of these awkward meetings ourselves.

Dates continues this evening with the return of Erica.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dates

Jen

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TV REVIEW: Dates - Week 1, Episodes 1-3

 Dates, the new drama series on Channel 4 which is essentially what it says on the tin, is a neat little concept. Created by Brian Elsley, the man behind E4 teen powerhouse Skins, the show consists of a series of two-handers, depicting the different ways people behave when on a first date.

The first episode, or ‘date’ of the week saw David (Will Mellor), a kind-hearted Northerner new to London and Mia (Oona Chaplin) a sophisticated woman about town, meet for an initially frosty dinner in what transpires to be David’s first venture in the world of internet dating. Far more of an old hand at it, Mia bluntly tells him how it is, growing rather fond of the Yorkshire-man in the process, despite herself. Through this, we also learn about different attitudes to dating and relationships on either side of the North-South divide, as David believes Southern women are a ‘nightmare’, never knowing what they want, and Mia just sees David as a naïve country bumpkin who hasn’t yet grasped the art of conversation.

Date two, was that of Jenny (Sheridan Smith) a sweet Shepherd’s Bush primary school teacher originally from Rotherham, and Nick (Neil Maskell), a ruthless city trader with more than a few secrets to hide. Bubbly Jenny is recovering from the breakdown of her engagement, whilst trying to settle in London at the same time, whilst Nick knows the city well, likes to throw his cash around and generally show-off. Having made ‘a few mistakes’ in his life, he is recently divorced. This sounded like a match made in Hell, and it largely was, although it was apparent that good-natured Jenny endeavoured to see the best in him, whilst Nick found her relatively pretty and adorable. Without spoiling it for anyone, however, the reasonably pleasant date takes an unexpected turn for the worse towards the end, and true colours are shown on both sides.

On the final date of the week we were once again with socialite Mia (Oona Chaplin), who this time has dinner with charming but jaded surgeon Stephen (Ben Chaplin*). He’s thinking of quitting the profession, and wants to charm the pants off a beautiful girl, quite literally, for a bit of a distraction from his ennui. It transpires, however, that Mia won’t be so easily manipulated- at least not until she’s had another couple of glasses of wine. We learn that she is an e-escort, and that Stephen once, er, used her services shall we say. This doesn’t exactly set things off on the right foot, but one this bombshell has been side-stepped, the two have a startling amount of chemistry on what becomes rather an unconventional date, and there is the suggestion that they might perhaps see each other again.

Each and every story so far has been compelling, engaging and written extremely competently. They’re paced rather unlike typical TV shows, with more of a slow, stagey feel to them. Which can only ever be a good thing in our world of fast edits and quick fix, adrenaline fuelled cuts. Each character is fully fleshed out by the actor in their shoes, with Will Mellor sweet as ever, and Stephen Chaplin sleazy and misunderstood in equal measure. It’s the girls, however, that have really shone so far. Oona Chaplin nails it as the sexy, all-knowing girl about town who, underneath all her sass and bravado, really just wants to be swept off her feet and fall in love. Sheridan Smith is equally perfect as primary school teacher Jenny, suitably awkward as well as totally adorable, despite some of her more unusual tendencies.

Next week sees a lesbian date, an appearance by the extraordinary talented Andrew Scott, and hopefully just more of the same. 

Jen

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TV REVIEW: Broadchurch - Episode Three

Now that we’ve reached the dizzying heights of Broadchurch, Episode 3 (I know, already!), we could be forgiven for expecting a few surprises here and there. A few plot twists and turns. And lo and behold, we were not disappointed.

Last week, we saw father of the deceased, Mark Latimer, taken down ol’ Broadchurch nick for a spot of questioning. Having seemingly lied about his whereabouts on the night his son disappeared, claiming to have been with a ‘friend’ he’d rather conveniently forgotten the name of, later remembering it to be hapless colleague Nige Carter (Joe Sims), not to mention the discovery of blood on the family boat, he was fast inching his way up to number one on the list of suspects. At least, that is, until lead investigators DI Hardy (David Tennant) and DS Ellie Miller (Olivia Colman) uncovered the truth. Unfortunately, however, so later did wife Beth (Jodie Whittaker).

Meanwhile, Susan (Pauline Quirke) was acting progressively more suspiciously, behaving in such a hostile way towards the police that one can’t help but be surprised that she hasn’t been imprisoned for something or other already, whilst Will Mellor’s bumbling psychic, Steve, became more and more desperate to give Beth his message from Danny. Which he duly did. In other local news, Arthur Darvill’s Reverend Paul Coates crossed over into please-let-me-help-I’m-having-a-bit-of-a-professional-crisis-over-here overdrive, being the only person in the know about Beth’s baby. The two super sleuths were also as persistent as ever, although with some actual motive behind Karen’s (Vicky McClure) behaviour revealed, and editor Maggie (Carolyn Pickles) remained as hostile to all outside creative influences as ever.

So yes, plot developments. Most striking, was the discovery of Mark’s not so very subtle affair with local hotelier Becca Fisher (Simone McAullay), it being reasonably obvious from the get go that he wasn’t really responsible for the death of his son.  He was also introduced as a suspect far too early to ever really be believable. We all know from our heritage of countless detective programmes and crime novels that the real killer is always the wild card that swoops in at the end – the one who was there all along but nobody ever really considered. That said, the sympathetic, totally un-shifty and sort of on the periphery and thus actually a little bit of a suspect award would currently have to go to Reverend Coates, were it to go to anyone. And  in these times of general and widespread Church distrust, I can’t help but feel that, not only would it be a tad cliché if Darvill’s character turned out to be the murderer, It would also be far too reminiscent of a game of Cluedo come to life for my liking.

Episode 3 also saw a little bit of character development between the two police detectives, Hardy and Miller, with Ellie inviting Tennant’s Hardy round for dinner, because that is ‘what people around here do’. Clearly unhappy about the fact, she wouldn’t take no for an answer, leaving us looking forward to a welcome bit of light relief in the form of a cosy family meal gate-crashed by the matriarch’s grumpy and not terribly popular boss. And in a TV series about the murder of a childhood, family breakdown and town suspicion- goodness knows we could do with it. Meanwhile Beth developed a feistiness towards her husband, admittedly born from mistrust, that it seems we may see more of in later episodes.

Sp things are moving along nicely down in Broadchurch. Much in the same way as you’d expect from almost any detective series, but nicely nonetheless.

Broadchurch is next on tomorrow night, 9pm, ITV1.

https://www.itv.com/itvplayer/broadchurch

Jen

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TV REVIEW: Broadchurch- Episode Two

Well, well. Kudos Productions have been busy. Having produced last week’s mini-series, Mayday here, their other, one assumes, main creations for 2013, Broadchurch is now showing on The Other Side. Otherwise known as ITV. 

As Becky wrote here in her review of Episode One, Broadchurch follows the after events of the murder of 11 year old Daniel Lattimer, late of the small seaside town. The show's main focus is on the reaction of Daniel’s family, as well as on the detectives running the operation, led by a very beardy, broody David Tennant as DI Alec Hardy, and the considerably warmer, perhaps slightly hapless DI Ellie Miller (Olivia Colman). Last week’s episode, as Becky said, was very much an establishing episode, with the audience catching glimpses of potential storylines, tensions and even suspects through our introduction to the townspeople and their home.  We’ve met the ever-versatile Arthur Darvill’s Reverend Coates, shifty Susan (not to be confused with Ripper Street’s long Susan), played by Pauline Quirke, David Bradley’s papershop owner, Jack, and now Will Mellor as a reluctant psychic.

If last week’s was a character focused episode, then, this week was the turn of themes- themes which we can tell will shape the drama of the rest of the series. Top of the list, and all the more noticeable since the days of Leveson, is the theme of Press interference and ethics. Young reporter Oliver Stevens (Jonathan Bailey) caused outrage in last week’s episode by breaking the news of the story via twitter. This week, he’s gone a step further, befriending visiting Daily Herald journo Karen White (Vicky McClure).  Local Press old guard Maggie Radcliffe (Carolyn Pickles), editor of the local paper, is less than thrilled with this development. We can only speculate as to whether this is a result of the fictional Daily Herald’s striking resemblance to the Daily Mail. Regardless of her reasons, though, it is clear from DI Hardy’s reaction to her alone that Ms White is trouble with a capital phone hacking.

Next on the list of popular tropes is suspicion. An obvious one in a TV series about murder, I’ll grant you, but what with Daniel’s mother Beth (Jodie Whittaker) handing the police a list of suspects which turns out to be a list of all their friends, coupled with Pauline Quirke’s Susan lonely, watchful life on the cliff, not to mention the fact that Daniel’s own father is a suspect- suspicion is here to stay. So too is religion, and the idea of life after death. Most obviously, we see this through Reverend Coates (Darvill), and his TV appeals and attempts to help the family. We also now have Steve Connolly (Mellor), a phone engineer who claims to have received a message from Daniel about his death. He in turn receives a frosty reception at best from Tennant’s DI Hardy, a man in serious danger of turning into a living snowman if he doesn’t crack a smile by the next episode.

For fan as I am of David Tennant, or DT, as I prefer to call him, I’m not convinced as yet that this will turn into one of his better performances. At the moment, his performance is  outshone in most scenes by the warm simplicity of Olivia Colman's. I know her character is far more likeable character to begin with, so she does have something of a headstart, but with Tennant’s role it feels as if the writers are trying a little too hard to make him into some sort of rude, moody iceman. Particularly as there are clear signs of emotional torment and a dark past just (about) under the surface. So far, so cliché. Arthur Darvill is giving a strong enough performance as the local vicar, as is Susan Brown as Liz Roper, Danny’s grandmother. Although they are all, in turn overshadowed by Jodie Whittaker’s heart-breaking performance as the grieving mother. 

Again, as Becky mentioned, Broadchurch is currently running the risk of becoming just another detective drama, simply going through the motions rather than trying anything particularly new. I love a detective show as much as the next person, more, I'll wager, but it's always far more exciting to watch something that is not only done well, but is doing something exciting.

Next week’s episode seems set to focus on the latest suspects, and will, I would imagine, delve a little deeper into the mind of DI Hardy. Not too much, though, there’s another six episodes to go yet. 

https://www.itv.com/itvplayer/broadchurch

Broadchurch is next on tomorrow night,9pm, ITV1. 

Jen

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