Sunday & Monday
Victoria
9pm, STV
As a rule, I avoid reading the press notes TV companies issue with their programmes helpfully detailing what’s going on and how good it all is, at least until after I’ve watched the show itself. Sometimes, this can lead to misunderstandings, and so it was as the first episode of Victoria unfurled its perfumed mysteries. Eventually, I had to admit defeat, hit pause and dig out the instruction manual after all, to try and work out what was supposed to be happening. Twenty-five minutes had passed, and there was still no sign of Scary, Sporty, Baby or Ginger, and, unless he had started dressing as a horse – admittedly, not outwith the bounds of plausibility – David Beckham was nowhere in sight.
It turns out that, despite appearances, rather than a dramatic eight-and-a-half-hour reconstruction of the irresistible rise of Posh Spice, this series is actually about history’s second-most-famous Victoria, the old Queen, gawd bless her. You can perhaps forgive my confusion. I was raised to believe that, in any given circumstance, Queen Victoria tended to resemble Alfred Hitchcock in a frock, which is not intended as a sleight on either of them. Actually, however, it seems she was a scintillating sci-fi heartbreaker, there mere sight of whom drove Grand Duke Alexander Of Russia to such erotic frenzy during her Coronation Ball that he risked an international incident by advancing upon the border of her bustle.
In this telling, Wee Vic is played by Jenna Coleman, formerly of Doctor Who, and the casting represents only the first step in the Whoification of royal drama. In November, Netflix will unveil The Crown, a 10-part series on our current queen, with ex-Doctor Matt Smith as Prince Philip. The calculation seems clear: Americans like classy-looking British productions about what a deep, dutiful, suffering drag it is to be rich and posh; and they like Doctor Who; so, let’s shove them together. Historians might despair, but it means new hope for a project I’ve been trying to pitch to the BBC for 20 years: Tom Baker as Princess Margaret.
Victoria sets out to blow the dust off our abiding image of the unamused old figurehead of Empire, and reveal the vivacious young woman inside, determined to battle the male hierarchy her family had benefitted from for generations, and divinely destined for greatness.
We open in 1837, when she was 18 and much of Britain’s architecture and vast swathes of its population were still made from CGI. During this period, it appears, being heir to the throne meant being forced to wear strange blue contact lenses that gave one the slight look of a haywire alien robot. Nonetheless, Coleman comes across as the most convincing human around, as, to underline how beastly and plotting her family were, everyone else acts as though trapped inside a live-action Disney movie from the late-1960s. Pick of the bunch is Peter Firth, whose striking pantomime as Evil Uncle Duke Of Cumberland suggests a pumpkin carved into the exact shape of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, then filled with villainous wind.
And yet, add longing looks, forbidden love and brooding courtesy of Rufus Sewell as Victoria’s tragic mentor Lord Melbourne, and, somehow, it manages to come together as an enjoyable swishing fairy tale. The romance will only deepen in weeks to come, when Victoria claps her weird eyes on the studly britches of her hot cousin, Prince Albert By Name Prince Albert By Nature. But, by then, of course, Poldark will be back on the other side at the same time, and she has no chance.
Monday
All Aboard! The Country Bus
8pm, BBC Four
Last summer BBC Four unveiled its “…Goes Slow” season, featuring programmes encouraging viewers to sit down, chill right out and just…watch…things…just…happening. One of the highlights was All Aboard! The Canal Trip, a two-hour float down the Kennet and Avon Canal, filmed in real time in a single shot from a barge, free from voice over or music. It was followed at Christmas with All Aboard! The Sleigh Ride. Now, in suitably unhurried fashion, comes the blockbusting second sequel. We are aboard “The Northern Dalesman,” as it wends its way across the hushed and blooming Yorkshire Dales: from Richmond, through river valleys, mining villages, and stretching moorland, passing the great Ribblehead viaduct along the way. It’s relaxing as all hell, although I can’t say I approve of the little informative captions that pop up from time to time. Thin end of the wedge, that. But let’s hope that the exciting rumours prove true, and they’re filming Fresh Paint Drying On A Garden Fence In The Cotswolds next.
Tuesday
Wolf Creek
10pm, Fox
Built around the disconcerting figure of Mick Taylor (John Jarratt), a jolly Crocodile Dundee-type who goes around butchering travellers in the bush for no clear reason, the Australian slasher movie Wolf Creek gained a cult following in 2005 as a kind of Outback Chainsaw Massacre. Following a 2014 sequel that offered gore of the same, Jarratt returns as the cackling Taylor for a third outing in this six-part TV spin-off. It’s squealing business as usual to begin: a family of American tourists comes into Taylor’s sights out by a billabong and, before 10 minutes have passed, he’s slaughtered them. Except, he’s not slaughtered them all – the troubled teenage daughter, Eve (Lucy Fry), survives, and vows to hunt Taylor down in the vast, parched territory, and have her revenge. The dark title sequence and gothic music promise an Antipodean True Detective, but as the entirely implausible chase begins it all gets far more Scooby Doo, with beers. Not one to think about, but at least the episodes are over quickly.
Wednesday
DCI Banks
9pm, STV
No matter how the tides may turn and fashions may change in other parts of television, there will always be a corner of ITV that is forever making dependable meat and potato British cop dramas. Thus Stephen Tompkinson returns tonight for a fifth series as the glum Yorkshire detective. Opening with a two-part story, Banks and his team are called in when a young man is found battered to death deep in the woods; coincidentally, the site of the frenzied attack is the same location where a girl recently committed suicide. Or is it a coincidence? As the investigation progresses, links emerge with the figure of one Steve Richards, a known local gangster who has always managed to hide his activities beneath a thin veneer or respectability, and Banks, convinced that the villain has finally slipped up, grows obsessed with bringing him in. It’s sad to see Shaun Dooley saddled with the bad guy role yet again as Richards, but he’s always good value at this kind of thing.
Thursday
The Night Of
9pm, Sky Atlantic
Anyone who was hooked on The People V OJ Simpson should seek out this new HBO import. It’s a fictional case this time (and we don’t know the ending), but the movement through grim murder mystery, to surprising police procedural, to hardboiled courtroom drama is similar, as is the detailed, nuanced eye cast on the political, social and economic factors framing the case. The story involves Naz (the excellent Riz Ahmed), a Pakistani-American student who, after a wild night, wakes to find the rich young white woman he went home with stabbed to death. John Turturro co-stars as the beat-down lawyer who takes his case. If you find dim bells ringing in your head, it could be because this is a reworking of Peter Moffat’s BBC series, Criminal Justice. But director Steven Zaillian and his writing partner Richard Price (the crime novelist who was also a core contributor to The Wire) create an entirely American translation. If you’re in the binge mood, all eight episodes are available from tonight via Sky Box Sets.
Friday
Goodnight Sweetheart
Young Hyacinth
9pm/ 9.30pm, BBC One
The BBC launches its sizable Sitcom Season on Sunday this week, with the baffling Are You Being Served remake (as weird a viewing experience as Gus Van Sant’s shot-for-shot version of Hitchcock’s Psycho, except with more pussy gags) and the largely ill-advised new sequel to Porridge. There are more returns to the well tonight, but at least writers Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran’s new Goodnight Sweetheart episode has the original cast in it again, led by Nicholas Lyndhurst, returning as the popular time-travelling bigamist, Gary Sparrow. Last we saw him (1999, our time), he had become trapped in the World War II era. Now, the clock has crept to 1962, offering him the chance to witness his own birth – and discover another portal back to the present. Written by Roy Clarke, Young Hyacinth is a prequel to his berserk Keeping Up Appearances. Set in the 1950s, Kerry Howard has the impossible job of trying to follow the glory that is Patricia Routledge in the title role. There can be only one.
Saturday
Strictly Come Dancing: The Launch Show
6.50pm, BBC One
Is that the time already? It’s slightly terrifying to realise Strictly has snuck up once again, here to lead us straight through Halloween and on up to the doorstep of Christmas. There’s still a couple of weeks to go before the series proper begins, so there’s some breathing space yet before Saturdays fill with glitter. But tonight’s the night that Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly officially unveil this year’s contestants, and match them up with their professional partners. Pray the whispers are true, and Ed Balls is getting paired off with Anton Du Beke. Among the others shaking their tail feathers for 2016 are, on the women’s side: Louise Redknapp, Birds Of A Feather star Lesley Joseph, singer Anastacia, model Daisy Lowe, TV presenter Laura Whitmore, TV presenter Naga Munchetty, gymnast Claudia Fragapane and EastEnder Tameka Empson. The other men are singer Will Young, long jumper Greg Rutherford, DJ Melvin Odoom, Hollyoaks actor Danny Mac, sports presenter Ore Oduba, and daytime nightmare Robert “Judge” Rinder. What can go wrong?
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