Autumn’s drawing its brittle fingers around us, so you know what that means: it’s time to enjoy a bowl of soup, a blast of central heating, and for a sumptuously knitted BBC Two Slanket of period drama to be thrown over us.
“What remains!”, you might have exclaimed enthusiastically as you saw the desiccated corpse of Melissa Young stowed away in the attic.
Reliably gritty and gruesome, it is time for another slice of serial killer action on the mean streets of Whitechapel.
After two series, each which followed on a single story, last year’s run settled into a more digestible two-part format with each pair of episodes focussing on a new case.
Channel 4’s Southcliffe was a muted, extremely tense show, but that didn’t stop it from going out with a bang. Nothing revelatory happened, the massive showdown wasn’t there – but it wasn’t needed. It was exactly this unsettling, seething atmosphere that made Southcliffe such a triumph.
After the turbulent, foreboding first half of Skins Rise hinted at plenty but revealed little, its second half still has a lot to explain.
The last time we saw the manic-hedonistic James Cook in Skins, he was seconds away from killing or being killed in one of the most intense cliffhangers in the show’s history. Cut forward three years, and the alive-and-well Cook works for a drug dealer in bleak suburban Manchester.
Many of you will have been expecting answers from The Returned‘s finale. Some of you will have surmised in advance that the show is too inscrutable to give up its secrets.
Idris Elba has said he would like to see a John Luther movie one day – possibly an origins story. This would not just befit a character who is more superhero than sleuth, but also seems like the only conceivable way of telling a fresh story.
After a slow-paced first half, Skins Pure continues to dawdle into its concluding hour. It becomes apparent it has no intention of picking up the pace and this might be the whole point.
Cassie’s neutral, cynical persona ensures that the same numbing melancholia of Part 1 transfers over into this second part. However, the beauty in the isolation remains just as effective, particularly the shots of windswept Welsh beaches and the derelict beach house.
There’s no escape this week. None whatsoever. And if you’ve followed The Returned this far, chances are you’re stuck too, just like us – unable to leave this show until you get to the bottom of what’s going on. Well, get comfy friends, because if writer Fabrice Gobert gets his wish we’re probably going to be here a couple of years yet.