‘Killing Eve’ (All 4 Seasons)

An unofficial fascination with presumed female assassins results in MI5 agent Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh) leading a covert MI6 team headed by the highly irregular Carolyn Martens (Fiona Shaw). A series of high profile deaths, seemingly unconnected, are believed to be linked to one operative – Villanelle (Jodie Comer).

Initially working out of Paris, the stylish Villanelle and her handler Konstantin (Kim Bodnia) work for The 12, a secretive oligarch that commission Villanelle (and others) to assassinate – industrialists, politicians, spies. But as Eve is to discover only too quickly, the spy webs, legal or otherwise, are inextricably linked – Carolyn Martens seems to know everyone, with a number, including Konstantin, former lovers.

Obsession leads to obsession as both Oh and Comer also become inextricably linked over the four seasons as action switches from London to Moscow to Paris to Rome to Barcelona to Havana to Berlin. They consume each other as deaths mount, leads fail to produce the desired results and Shaw’s loyalties are less than apparent. It’s The 12 they’re all ostensibly looking for but Killing Eve is as much about the relationships between the four as it is about the murderous threat to European stability. Along the way, Eve loses her husband Niko (Owen McDonnell), tired as he is of the disconnect that has developed between them, as Villanelle disposes of the Russian family she thought was dead.

It’s a gorgeously told series of narratives, visceral in appeal as the malevolent glamour and violence of Villanelle is balanced with the married ordinariness of Oh. But roles flip as the series develops. Freed from the contraints of that married ordinariness, it’s Eve who, by the end, becomes the stronger character chasing down leads that will reveal the identity of The 12. Mordant wit abounds as the three women lock horns. Sadly, season three lost the edginess of the first two seasons written by Emerald Fennell as a somewhat uncertain, ungrounded Eve drifts through the tracking down of the ever untouchable Villanelle. But four sees a resurgence in the narrative. A more vulnerable Villanelle is finally reachable and the full extent of Carolyn’s behind-the-scenes machinations become apparent – particularly when another assassin, Pam (Anjana Vasan), trained by Konstantin, appears on the scene.

Rating: 77%

‘Happy Valley’ (Seasons 1-3)

Set in the industrial Calder Valley of West Yorkshire, Happy Valley is a riveting 18-part, three season drama centring on the personal and professional life of Police Sergeant Catherine Cawood and her immediate family.

Exploring the ties that bind, Cawood (a superb, empathic Sarah Lancashire) is a popular sergeant working out of the small police station in Sowerby Bridge, a few miles west of the larger Halifax. She lives at home with grandson Ryan (Rhys Connah) and sister, recovering addict Clare (Siobhan Finneran). It’s the historical background behind this arrangement that forms the central drama to all three seasons (shot over a nine year period) of Happy Valley. Family is the heart of the series: police investigations, whilst core to the unfolding narratives, are, with one significant exception, almost secondary.

Tragedy struck the Cawoods a decade earlier with the suicide of teenage Becky, Ryan’s mother, just weeks after the boy’s birth. With Catherine overcome with grief, refusing to give up Ryan, the Cawood family fractured – husband Richard (Derek Riddell) moved out, as did their 19 year-old son, Daniel (Karl Davies). Hanging in the air is the fact Ryan is the result of rape: recently released prisoner Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton) is the biological father but unaware of the boy. It’s the conflict between Catherine and Royce, whom she blames for Becky’s death, that creates the intensity of the unfolding drama over the three seasons. She fights tooth and nail to ensure there is no contact between him and her grandson: it’s how Catherine deals with its escalation and her uncompromising stance that impacts on the rest of the family.

Interwoven in the family dramas is the everyday procedural work of the local police force. Royce is integral to enquiries and suspicions of the main season one investigation (and which spills over into seasons two and three). Over the course of the 18 epsiodes, Happy Valley features kidnapping, rape, multiple murders, extortion, prostitution, drugs, violence, police corruption as well as the minor daily infringements. Yet this is a very British prolice procedural narrative: this is no gun-toting underbelly of Los Angeles or Chicago. Ne’er a gun is fired and, in most instances, rules are followed. Catherine can be a bit of a larrikin but audience empathy is completely behind everything she does.

Admittedly, the central drama between Catherine and Royce pushes the boundaries of believability and slips into melodrama – but central characters Sarah and the desperate-to-please Clare are so preoccupied with their everyday, it almost doesn’t matter. The three seasons are building to that final confrontation, come what may – and the audience is taken every step of the way.

Rating: 82%

‘Bloodlands’ (Season 1)

Belfast-set four part first season – with the kidnapping of prominent Catholic businessman Pat Keenan (Peter Ballance), Bloodlands sees the spectre of history and the Troubles rear its ugly head.

Northern Irish police officer DCI Tom Brannick (the ever reliable James Nesbitt) heads up the case but it’s immediately apparent the kidnapping is linked to the cold-case Goliath murders. Four high-profile assassinations, both Catholic and Protestant, were carried out on the eve of the Good Friday Agreement 20 years earlier. They were kept quiet to ensure the peace agreement went through. One of the victims was Brannick’s wife.

Needing to avoid the revival of any sectarian violence, Brannick and his assistant Detective Sergeant Niamh McGovern (Charlene McKenna) piece together evidence of both the kidnapping and the multiple murders. It leads to the discovery of decomposed bodies on a small, uninhabited island in the middle of Strangford Lough outside Belfast. With evidence having suggested Goliath was an insider within the police force, Brannick treads carefully with the political and personal ramifications of the case only too apparent.

A superior police procedural thriller created and written by Chris Brandon, Bloodlands highlights crimes from the past continuing to impact on the process of reconciliation (Keenan’s family immediately look to their own to find the kidnapped businessman rather than trust the government-run police force). It unexpectedly provides (no spoilers) two midseason reveals which dilute the ‘thrill’ aspect of the series, focussing the narrative on character and that ever-present recent past.

Rating: 63%

‘National Treasure’

A four part miniseries, National Treasure, buoyed by a strong cast and a script by Jack Thorne, explores the deeply contentious subject of accusations of historical rape and sexual abuse.

Paul Finchley (Robbie Coltrane), a TV game-show presenter and one half of a popular, long-running comedy double act with Karl Jenkins (Tim McInnerny), finds his life turned upside down when the police turn up at his front door. A woman has accused him of historical rape more than 25 years earlier when she was just 15. Newspaper headlines bring forward more accusations.

Based loosely on a series of UK police investigations into a number of television and radio personalities around 2010, National Treasure and its focus is primarily on Coltrane and his family rather than the survivors. A serial philanderer, Finchley has placed his wife of 40 years ((Julie Walters) in an unenviable position on too many occasions. But each time, she has chosen to stay with him. The question now is can their marriage survive this latest test: does she believe his adamant denial? And with so much in the air, their daughter (Andrea Riseborough), a recovering addict, questions whether she has repressed events of her past..

High in quality with assured performances but somewhat grim in content, National Treasure looks to the impact both of the accusations and the family grappling with the news. There’s no question Finchley is – and was – a sleaze bag and sexual predator. But is he guilty?

Rating: 58%

‘Downton Abbey’

The smash TV series hits the big screen with all the upstairs and downstairs characters back as the King and Queen come to stay for a night on the royal tour of Yorkshire.

It’s a straightforward, pleasant enough narrative but all a little too vanilla and over reaching. In the TV series, each ‘story’ would have been one episode: in the film, most are dispatched in 10-15 minutes. The threat to the King: a light-fingered visiting staff member: Barrow’s (Robert-James Collier) close call with the police. Underlying it all is the responsibility of tradition, preserving the established way of life in light of political and social changes.

The film is a true ensemble but delivers a surprise in that characters such as Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern as Lord and Lady Crawley are to be found in the background. Downton Abbey is about the past represented by Maggie Smith letting go, with the future in the hands of Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery).

Rating: 53%

Director: Michael Engler (The Chaperone, TV’s Downton Abbey)

Writer: Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park, TV’s Downton Abbey)

Main cast: Michelle Dockery (The Sense of an Ending, Anna Karenina), Maggie Smith (The Lady in the Van, California Suite), Hugh Bonneville (Iris, Viceroy’s House)

‘Killing Eve’

An unofficial fascination with presumed female assassins results in MI5 agent Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh) leading a covert MI6 team headed by the highly irregular Fiona Shaw. A series of high profile deaths, seemingly unconnected, are believed to be linked to one operative – Villanelle (Jodie Comer).

Obsession leads to obsession as both Oh and Comer become inextricably linked over the three seasons as action switches from London to Moscow to Paris to Rome to Barcelona. They consume each other as deaths mount, leads fail to produce the desired results and Shaw’s loyalties are less than apparent.

It’s a gorgeously told series of narratives, visceral in appeal as the malevolent glamour and violence of Villanelle is balanced with the married ordinariness of Oh. Mordant wit abounds as the three women lock horns. Sadly, season three lost the edginess of the the first two seasons as a somewhat lost, ungrounded Eve drifts through the tracking down of the ever untouchable Villanelle.

Rating: 85% (seasons 1 & 2), 65% (season 3)

‘Ready Player One’

Predominantly CGI, what it lacks in character development it more than makes up for in its upbeat, action-packed energy.

Unexpectedly immersive, Spielberg lets his avatars play their quest to find the egg hidden in the reality game – and stop Ben Mendelssohn from creating a gaming monopoly in the real world.

It’s a visual spectacle, with enough grunge reality to provide respite as Tye Sheridan and Olivia Cooke find adventure and love. True, Spielberg avoids commentary on the darker elements of a world controlled by technocracy, but as a piece of escapist entertainment, there’s little faulting Ready Player One.

Nominated for best special effects Oscar in 2019.

Rating: 66%

Director: Steven Spielberg (Jurassic Park, Raiders of the Lost Ark)

Writer: Zak Penn (The Avengers, The Incredible Hulk), Ernest Cline (Fanboys) – based on the novel by Ernest Cline

Main cast: Tye Sheridan (Mud, X-Men Apocalypse), Olivia Cooke (Me & Earl & the Dying Girl, The Limehouse Golem), Ben Mendelsohn (Rogue One – A Star Wars Story, Darkest Hour)