A version of this article was originally published in The Courier on 4 March 2017.
THE REPLACEMENT: Tuesday, BBC One
BROADCHURCH: Monday, STV
PRIME SUSPECT 1973: Thursday, STV
Never
trust overbearingly friendly, helpful people. That’s the important public
service message behind THE REPLACEMENT,
an uncomfortably gripping psychological thriller about a successful Glasgow
architect gradually being usurped by the mentally unstable woman hired to cover
her maternity leave.
When
Ellen (Morven Christie) becomes pregnant, she initially welcomes the
ultra-capable and seemingly empathetic Paula (Vicky McClure) to the fold. Paula
is a doting mother, or so she claims, but her interest in Ellen’s pregnancy is
acutely inappropriate. She tries to not-so-subtly undermine her colleague with
physically invasive behaviour and passive-aggressive advice.
Ellen
gradually develops a dislike for her. She becomes suspicious of her motives.
But is she merely in the grip of hormone-addled paranoia? Of course not. We’ve
all seen Rosemary’s Baby.
Aside
from a climactic death scene – which naturally sends Ellen into labour - writer/director
Joe Ahearne avoids overt thriller flourishes in favour of a more insidious
approach. It’s very effective.
Christie
and McClure are both excellent, the latter in particular. She succeeds in
portraying Paula’s manipulative clamour while appearing outwardly pleasant and
self-effacing. A plausible monster.
The
end, at last, is in sight for BROADCHURCH,
the Cluedo-like whodunit that squandered the buzz of its first impressive, attention-grabbing series. Can this third and final outing atone
for the redundant mess of series two?
Well,
this new case involving a traumatised victim of sexual assault is sensitively
handled and more or less divorced from the original storyline. So far at least,
it’s a respectable piece of drama, seemingly based on careful research into
rape crisis management. Well I never.
Where
it goes from here is anyone’s guess, but I hope it proves that writer Chris
Chibnall – the journeyman tasked with ruling Doctor Who after the great Steven Moffat retires at Christmas –
isn’t merely a hack who once caught lightning in a bottle.
Flushed
with the success of Endeavour, ITV
have taken the cynical – sorry, natural – step of producing a prequel to
another one of their much-loved crime dramas.
Awash
with rain and wistful recordings by Joe Cocker and Cat Stevens, PRIME SUSPECT 1973 charts the nascent
career of Jane Tennison, originally played by Helen Mirren, as a young police
constable entering a world mired in violence and murder.
Blandly earnest, she's nowhere near as interesting as the older Tennison, which is possibly why her creator Lynda La Plante left the project during pre-production. Even allowing for her youth, there's nothing to suggest that she's the same character. Why, it's almost as if ITV didn't have the nerve to launch a '70s-set cop show without tying it to the safety net of an established "brand".
However, it
does a decent job of capturing the brown-upholstered fog of early 1970s Britain,
without too much reliance on the self-conscious period signifiers common to
other dramas of its type. There’s not a single spacehopper to be found.
While
the twin discomforts of institutionalised sexism and police brutality are both
present and politically incorrect, they don’t feel overcooked. Writer Glen Laker has a fairly convincing feel for the period.
Indeed,
the sombre approach of the original Prime
Suspect is successfully carried over into this surprisingly diverting piece
of anti-nostalgia.
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