The Capture, BBC1, Sunday
****
When The Capture first landed in 2019, deep fakes and other online scams were still novel, and the idea that seeing should not necessarily be believing was still a shade “out there”. But we’re all in the loop now, so where’s the writer of a cyber conspiracy thriller to go next?
Fortunately, The Capture is to surveillance what Line of Duty is to police corruption and Spooks was to spying. It’s a hook on which to hang a drama. The viewer doesn’t need to know their terabytes from their midgie bites, but a smart young heroine battling to stay ahead of shadowy bad guys - that will do nicely on a Sunday evening.
When we first met Rachel Carey (played by Holliday Grainger), she was a fast-track graduate out to prove her worth. She has risen through the police ranks by staying ahead of the deepfake game, and in this, the third series, she is the acting boss of Counter Terrorism Command no less. Among those on speed dial is fellow hotshot and Home Secretary, Isaac Turner (Paapa Essiedu).
In short, everything appears to be going Carey’s way. She is still going home to an empty flat, but it is a much fancier gaff, complete with designer suits hanging in the closet.
Carey hardly has time to enjoy power-striding along the corridors of power before she is put to the test - and how. Writer-director Ben Chanan keeps the action coming at a tremendous lick, piling one thrill-a-minute scene on another. Where you might wait half a series for a decent setpiece, The Capture packs three into the first episode.
Holliday is rarely off the screen and makes a credible action hero (apart from the scene where she runs down the stairs holding a gun aloft as if it were a Martini).
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This is no mere star vehicle for Grainger. She has impressive competition for the viewer’s attention, be it from MI5 officer Gemma Garland (Lia Williams, Mr Bates vs The Post Office), Essiedu’s ambitious politico or Ron Perlman’s seriously scary CIA bureau chief who could power a series on his own. Similarly terrifying is Indira Varma as a diva BBC journalist.
Accept no substitutes - The Capture is a genuine blast.
Gone, STV, Sunday
***
Where The Capture relies on whizz-bang tech and pursuits for thrills, Gone lingers over the faces of its main characters. Set in a boys-only pile near Bristol, it is an old school drama in every sense.
David Morrissey plays headmaster Michael Polly. The name suggests a modern Mr Chips, but Polly is as soft and yielding as a rugby pitch in January. A precise, controlled and controlling man, he returns home one day to find his music tutor wife has not turned up for a scheduled lesson. Though their daughter is concerned, it is a while before he contacts the police - one of several hints that this has happened before, and all is not as it seems with this marriage, this man.
The officer assigned to the investigation is DS Annie Cassidy (Eve Myles). We meet Cassidy having dinner with her ex. He’s on his best behaviour, she’s friendly enough, but keeping him at a distance. Someone has been damaged in that relationship and it is not him.
After a development in the case, Cassidy’s (male) boss takes over, relegating her and her (female) partner to the role of family liaison officers. With Polly giving nothing away emotionally, Cassidy uses her proximity to try to read him. He’s a “funny fish” all right, but that doesn’t make him a killer. As news of the disappearance spreads and parents demand he step down, Polly’s carefully arranged world is turned on its head.
Morrissey (Sherwood, The Missing) can scowl for England. He looks as though he was born that way and has only grown wearier with the world since. So accustomed are we to seeing him as a grump, it was a shock to see him cracking smiles in the recent comedy Daddy Issues (turns out he’s pretty good at that, too).
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Since several of his scenes in Gone take place when he is alone, we are reliant on him being unscrutable. He doesn’t disappoint. Ditto Myles, who seems to be on every drama going at the moment, but who’s complaining? Together, the icy headmaster and the emotionally aware but still guarded cop circle each other, looking for clues. Who will crack first?
Gone may creak in parts, but Morrissey and Myles spark up a storm as sparring partners.
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