Things pick up with episodes two and three as the series shines a light on the nostalgic golden years of '70s Britain and finds they weren’t all that great after all. While the series parodies '70s cop shows like The Sweeney in also brings home some of the prejudices of the time. Episode two focuses on racism and highlights how Blacks were treated then, a problem that was even prevalent in the police force. It’s the offhand way that the bigotry presents itself that’s most disturbing, like it was accepted behaviour (which at the time it was) with the minorities sometimes playing up to it so as not to rock the boat.
The '70s was a particularly bad time in Northern Ireland and the third episode focuses on the prejudices just being Irish invoked, with arrests made based solely on where you were born, without evidence to back it up. The message of the episode is clear; this sort of treatment may have pushed honest Irishmen to join the IRA.
Yet the series shows us all this and still manages to bring back fond memories of those times. As DI Gene Hunt, a violent, racist bully who makes The Sweeney's Jack Regan look like… well, Inspector Morse, Philip Glenister is brilliant. He takes this larger than life caricature and turns him into a human being, someone you may at times despise but who never fails to keep your attention. By contrast John Simm gets the less showy part of Sam Tyler. The opposite of Hunt, Tyler is moral, even-tempered (most of the time) and just an all round nice guy who you instinctively like. You’re rooting for him to get home, back to 2007 and yet and the same time you're not because if he leaves 1973 the series will end and it’s far too enjoyable to want that.
Primeval
Episodes 1-3
This new show from the British ITV channel is clearly looking for the same audience for family SF that the BBC showed was there with its successful re-launch of Doctor Who. The first episode borrows ideas from such disparate sources as Jurassic Park, canceled US TV show Surface and even Stargate and blends them together to create one of the best British SF series ever.
The show deals with holes in time, the creatures that come through them to create chaos in the modern world, and the team whose job it is to minimise the danger. It’s brilliantly paced, giving us lots of action each week but also just enough of the mystery surrounding the “anomalies” to keep us hooked. Best of all it has a cast of truly likable characters; everyone from scientist Nick Cutter to the team nerd Connor Temple are both brilliantly written and wonderfully played. One reason for watching the show is to see the monster of the week, but you also want to know what happens to the team, not just with regard to the big story but also the internal dynamics of the group.
Article comments
1 - manfred
imo the Nikki/Jessica plot was pretty fun in Run. She finally comes out well , something that hasnt been shown before.
Nice to see you writing again Ian :)
2 - Ian Woolstencroft
Hi manfred.
Yes Run was one of Niki's best episodes. Early on she was one of my favourite characters but she dropped down as the series progressed. She's started working her way back up now though.
The only character who's been at the top of my favourites list since the beginning is Clair and she just gets better and better.
Thanks for reading.