WELL hello there, the first week of television 2018! How different you look to the first week of television 2017. No escapist dramas to lift the January blues, no attempts at highbrow telly to give a comforting sense of a fresh start, and no how-to-lose-weight shows because you’ve eaten your body weight in Celebrations.
Ah, hang on. The first week of television 2018 is exactly the same as every other first week. Let us not be too tough on the TV commissars; there’s a whole year ahead in which to do that.
McMafia (BBC One, Sunday/Monday, 9pm) opened in a sun-dappled exotic location, always a good sign. Various characters whom one sensed were not international aid workers were discussing a major deal and smiling villainously.
Over in London, handsome young City slicker Alex Godman (James Norton) was going about his strictly legitimate business. Alex’s family money may have come from the shadier side of the Moscow street, but he would never, not in a million years, swear on my babushka’s life, have anything to do with the violent, corrupt world of Putin’s Russia. “I’m a banker, not a gangster,” Alex insisted to anyone who was interested. Even if they weren’t interested, he insisted.
You don’t have to be an MI6 agent to guess what happened next. McMafia has a Night Manager-level budget and a United Nations cast of actors. It oozes quality, and in Norton it has a leading man who can both act and look good in a DJ. Nice multitasking, love.
From glam London it was on to down and dirty Paris with the return of Spiral (BBC Four, Saturday, 9pm/10pm). Among connoisseurs of foreign crime drama, Commander Laure Berthaud and her team are Beluga caviar washed down with the finest Grey Goose. Laure (think DCI Jane Tennison in skinny jeans and bovver boots) was still on maternity leave when her colleagues found a torso in a pile of rubbish on the street. She insisted on coming back to work; not a moment too soon for those of us bored out of our tiny minds with Scandi-noir.
More cockles-warming fare was on offer in Girlfriends (STV, Wednesday, 9pm), a new drama by Kay Mellor (Band of Gold). Here was a tale of three old pals, a glamorous one (Miranda Richardson), a dowdy one (Phyllis Logan) and, er, another dowdy one (Zoe Wanamaker), going through such midlife trials as divorce, menopause and having a husband who goes overboard on a cruise and is presumed dead.
As is compulsory in such dramas the women were northerners (though Richardson was more north London than north of England) and keen on sharing. While it should have made for cosy viewing, Girlfriends was tired, unfunny, and ever so slightly patronising to the age group it was meant to be celebrating. Far from wanting to spend more time with these three amigos I couldn’t wait to fake a hot flush and skedaddle.
ITV launching a new arts programme. Now there is a sentence with a certain novelty. Courtesy of The South Bank Show, the commercial channel used to punch far above its weight on arts coverage, but in recent years the doodles on Catchphrase (“Say what you see …”) have been about as good as it gets. Until now. Great Art (STV, Thursday, 10.45pm) stems from a series of films first released in cinemas. The idea: take a landmark exhibition and use it as the peg to examine an artist’s work and life. The first subject was Canaletto and Venice.
Beautifully shot, Great Art was like the best audio and visual museum guide available, but there was something missing. What it needed, as talking head A was followed by talking head B, was a personality. A Schama or a Starkey. A bit of va va voom. Would we learn any more though? There is a chance to find out as the exhibition is coming to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in May. Take the family and stun them with your expertise. It will be our little secret.
Not so secret comfort eating was the chewy topic in Tom Kerridge’s Lose Weight for Good (BBC Two, Wednesday, 8pm). The Michelin-starred chef once topped the scales at 30 stone before losing 12. “I cut out the carbohydrates, quit the booze and hit the gym.” Thanks very much Tom, said I, making my way to the fridge after what had turned out to be an admirably succinct programme.
But there was more. A six-part series, no less, in which Tom will take a group of volunteers and show them how to make tasty food with fewer calories.
The recipes were simple and Kerridge seems a decent bloke even if the dreaded word “journey” did pass his lips. We’re on diets, Tom, the only journey we are on is the road to hell.
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