Daft days ahead as child goes missing
WHAT DO YOU do with leftover barbecue food? It’s the quandary of the moment. A bin is always a sensible route. But not in the plush environs of Hollington Drive (ITV, Wednesday), the new, slightly daft, “missing child” thriller.
Rhashan Stone’s Fraser – married to Anna Maxwell Martin’s Theresa or “T” (what?) – thinks he knows. He thought a cold, burnt meat offering was just the thing for a couple on the posh estate who were dealing with the disappearance of their son barely 12 hours earlier. Hey, barbecue food can be very soothing
– when it’s hot! Not when it’s offered in Tupperware with a few scraps of yesterday’s limp salad.
Distraught father Gareth ( Jonas Armstrong) and his wife were very polite about it, but you sensed the tension underneath. Why hadn’t they – as school-gate pals – been invited to this nice get-together? Maybe, their son wouldn’t have gone missing. Maybe, he would have been abducted sooner!
TV has been mashing up ideas on missing children since the first cathode ray tube was lit. In this, the focus is not primarily on the parents, but the neighbours, mostly Maxwell-martin’s T who thinks her own son may have been involved in fowl play. Sorry, foul.
As the episode concluded, Gareth showed his true colours by “soothing” his troubled mind by continuing what appeared to be an affair with Rachael Stirling’s now slightly less stressed head. People must do what they can to get through a crisis.
Things can only get dafter in the next episode as Horrible Histories’ Jim Howick is the investigating police officer. Clearly sent from the busy
Stupid Deaths department.
But if you want daft, a recurring theme this week, plumb the depths of Vigil (BBC1, Sunday) which sunk to new levels of absurdity in its final episode. While Suranne Jones took a quick course in Morse code in a torpedo tube (or ingenuous new airport hotel room), fresh-faced traitor and sonar operator Matthew got himself a monkey wrench and unlocked a torrent of trouble. Vigil should have sunk in no time, but two Herculean engineers stemmed the deluge in moments. Phew. Later, the unlikely turncoat was pursued through what looked like a deserted nightclub with poor lighting, before he was arrested – about 30 minutes from the end. Where was the twist? There was none. Another series? If it ever gets out of dry dock.
The finale of Endeavour (ITV, Sunday) was much more gripping, in an episode which had unexpected touches of Hammer Horror and a famous Agatha Christie. Young Morse (Shaun Evans) was again suffering badly from drink when he found himself marooned among a clutch
of innocent-looking bus passengers in a rambling condemned hotel. Their double decker had been crippled by huge fake snowfalls in Oxfordshire.
As time went by, the passengers had an annoying habit of disappearing one-byone. It also turned out that the hotel had once been the scene of a horrific murder. Pity no one had seen the Tripadviser review – “Superbly realistic murder-mystery evening”.
As a hangover cure, the plot worked exceedingly well, as Morse agreed to go into rehab, “in a place down in Sussex run by a fellow called Wayne”, suggested by his boss, Thursday (Roger
Allam). Oh, that one.
Wayne is a great guy. This was the scariest, creepiest Morse since the great Richard Briers was once an evil college don. Good luck in your dry dock, Morse!
I confess to going on an excessive binge watch of two episodes of word-of-mouth hit Squid Game (Netflix). After being reassured that it wasn’t a new Deliveroo destination, I watched on in horror, mostly, as inveterate gamblers and ne’er-do-wells were submitted to a “game” in South Korea where they could win billions of “won” currency and get their lives back. The twist is during the game they will most likely get shot.
Cue buckets of realistic fake blood as Hunger Games meets 1984.
But is there more to this gore fest? A bit. In the second episode, those who weren’t dead returned to their former lives, only for some to discover that they might have been better off in the game.
“Out here, the torture is worse,” says one old man with a terminal brain tumour. It’s not a comedy.
The likeable central character is a gambling addict with huge debts. However, when his daughter’s stepdad offers him cash to go away, he shouts back: “Do you think money solves everything?” For the bravehearted only.
Finally, The Great British Bake Off (Channel 4, Tuesday) continued to entertain, not least for the sight of presenter Noel Fielding who, with scraped back hair and ghostly face, looked like he’d popped into the tent on his way to rehearsals for a panto. An early Halloween
treat.