THE
RETURNED
Sunday,
Channel 4, 9pm
DATES
Monday
to Wednesday, Channel 4, 10pm
AGATHA
CHRISTIE'S POIROT: ELEPHANTS CAN REMEMBER
Sunday,
STV, 8pm
Their
first foreign-language acquisition in over 20 years, THE RETURNED
is clearly Channel 4's attempt to hijack the runaway success of
BBC4's European drama bandwagon.
The
subtitled likes of Spiral, Wallander, Arne Dahl, The Bridge,
and, most notably, The Killing have all attracted dedicated
cults in the last few years, and I suspect this French supernatural
drama – a critically-acclaimed smash at home under its original
title, Les Revenants – will reap similar awards. Having
dipped a cautious toe in the pool with the inferior US remake of The
Killing, this is Channel 4 fully and belatedly embracing one of
the biggest TV trends of our time. And it looks like they've chosen
wisely.
Loosely
based on a 2004 film of the same name, it focuses on the residents of
a picturesque Alpine town as they come to terms with the mystifying
return of locals who died years ago (one suspects Dominic Mitchell,
author of BBC3's recent zombie drama In the Flesh, is a fan).
Outwardly normal in appearance – no rotting flesh or cannibalistic
urges here – they haven't aged a day since they died, and have no
memory of time passing.
Each
episode nominally focuses on one particular character, with the first
revolving around Camille, a young girl whose school bus crashes into
a mountain dam. The opening scenes, in which she clambers from the
ravine and wanders home through the twilight, recall the striking
introduction to Twin Peaks: indeed, there's a vaguely Lynchian
feel to this painterly study of a remote community torn apart by
grief and mystery.
Despite
the fantastical premise, the action unfolds at a leisurely,
underplayed pace. Its quietude merely adds to the pervading
atmosphere of disquieting intensity. With a sonorous score by Glasgow
post-rock band Mogwai, it's a captivating moan of arthouse horror.
That's right, on Channel 4, the home of Embarrassing Bodies
and Big Fat Strictly Dole-Scum Hoarders. Well I never.
Mostly
set at night, it takes place against an unnervingly sparse world of
lamplight, underpasses and stark apartment blocks, redolent in mood
of Let The Right One In. Aside from Camille – whose divorced
parents greet her return with a believable embrace of stunned rapture
– we're also introduced to a dazed returnee in search of his
fiancee, and a creepy little boy whose mute demeanor and inscrutable
smile are more frightening than most 18-rated horror films. He's like
a “cursed” painting come to life.
If
we're to trust the garlands it received upon its initial transmission
in France, then The Returned may be one of the most striking
TV dramas of the year. Channel 4 doubtless regard it as a gamble –
their decision to broadcast the ad-breaks in French smacks of nervous
gimmickry – but I don't doubt its addictive cult appeal. Baffling
in the best possible sense, its haunting mystique is inescapable.
Given
my pathological aversion to cocksure young people and their hats, I
could never abide E4 youth drama Skins. But its creator, Bryan
Elsley, has pleasantly surprised me with his latest venture, DATES. A series of half-hour dramas focusing on characters
struggling through first dates, it's
an almost unremittingly bleak treatise on various human foibles. But
don't let that put you off: bleak is good.
Essentially
a series of standalone two-hander plays – although at least one
character crops up in a later episode – it's the sort of
“experimental” piece one used to associate with Channel 4 in its
halcyon days. Although episode one shows that Elsley hasn't lost his
knack for creating profoundly irritating characters, there's
something cruelly captivating about chippy everyman Will Mellor's
awkward encounter with Oona Chaplin's aggressively unlikeable bully.
Although one wonders why, wounded pride aside, Mellor's character
would put up with her exhausting unpleasantness, I do admire Elsley's
refusal to soften the blows.
Having
watched the first three episodes – mousy Sheridan Smith's queasy
date with Neil Maskell's gruff city trader is similarly unyielding –
it seems that Elsley is attempting to say something meaningful about
the guises we adopt at our most vulnerable and desperate. It's an
unedifying portrait of human nature at somewhere near its worst: a
cynical blast of rotten candour. Whether Elsley and his fellow
writers actually like their characters is a moot point, but I can't
deny the claustrophobic, voyeuristic impact of these superbly
performed chamber pieces.
David
Suchet's ambitious goal of starring in an adaptation of every single
Hercule Poirot novel and short story nears fruition with AGATHA
CHRISTIE'S POIROT: ELEPHANTS CAN REMEMBER, which begins ITV's
final leg of the long-running franchise. Widely regarded as the
weakest Poirot novel – published in 1972, it was Christie's final
dalliance with the character – it inevitably fails to pass muster
in TV form.
Zoe
Wannamaker returns as feted crime author – and Christie simulacrum
– Ariadne Oliver, as she seeks the Belgian detective's assistance
in solving the apparent double suicide of a happily married couple.
Suchet, as always, is impeccable, but one can't shake the feeling
that this underwhelming entry is merely a box-ticking exercise in
fulfilling a legacy.
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