Infectious Rellik drama kept momentum while in reverse
It might be backwards but it could prove a leap forward. Serial killer thriller Rellik (BBC One) – try reading the title in reverse – made a bid to breathe new life into the overpopulated cop genre by telling its crime story back to front. Did it work? Sey. Sorry, I mean yes. It’s infectious, this palindrome business.
The high-concept series from screenwriting siblings Harry and Jack Williams – creators of child abduction drama The Missing – followed a sprawling murder investigation in reverse chronology. After the prime suspect was apprehended in a pacy opening sequence, the action spooled back to delve into the case and probe the motives.
At the heart of this head-spinning narrative was gimlet-eyed Met detective Gabriel Markham (Richard Dormer, swapping his Game of Thrones eyepatch for facial prosthetics), badly disfigured due to being doused in acid by the murderer. There were seven dead victims out there and the cat-and-mouse duel between the obsessive cop and the fugitive killer had become deeply personal.
The supporting cast of enigmatic characters further complicated matters: Patrick (Paul Rhys), a sleazy executive; Isaac (Paterson Joseph), a cleanliness-crazed psychiatrist; a gay cop couple; and Gabriel’s unfeasibly foxy sidekick Elaine (Jodi Balfour), with whom he was sleeping.
The tricksy structure was doubtless inspired by art house films like Christopher Nolan’s Memento or Gaspar Noé’s Irréversible. Each tumble back through time was signalled by a trippy, pop video-esque rewound montage. Blood flowed back into wounds, tears ran up cheeks.
Director Sam Miller took visual cues from Nordic noir, using a palette of sludgy greenish-greys. Slate skies, ceaseless rain and a portentously throbbing soundtrack built the claustrophobic mood.
Crime dramas tend to stand or fall on their resolution. Rellik will even more so, since its ending will also be its beginning. Viewers will spend so much brain-power following the plot, it had better deliver. On this evidence, though, something deeply intriguing will unravel over the next five weeks. Not so much a whodunit as a “aha, but did he really?”. It might have gone backwards but it retained forward momentum.
In a cruel twist of televisual fate, Rellik was scheduled against another Williams Bros production, Liar, over on ITV. Rellik had the edge. Case closed. Or is it?
Joanne Froggatt, aka Downton Abbey lady’s maid Anna Bates, has quietly become one of our most reliable TV actresses – a sort of junior Sarah Lancashire or trainee Olivia Colman. The superlative Froggatt delivered another gut-punch performance in
Liar (ITV) as Laura, the victim of an alleged date rape.
When schoolteacher Laura nervously went for dinner with dashing doctor Andrew (Ioan Gruffudd of Horatio Hornblower fame), all seemed to go swimmingly. Wine and conversation flowed. The next morning, though, Laura woke feeling queasy and with a blurred memory of being sexually assaulted.
Was it rape or consensual? And with it being a case of her word against his, will the police believe a woman with a history of mental health problems? As Laura admitted, she might be “a hysterical mad woman telling lies about a hero surgeon”. It was no coincidence that she was teaching her GCSE English class about The Crucible.
Both protagonists seemed convincing at first, despite their calamitously different testimonies. Yet, ambiguity gradually crept in. We learnt about Laura’s troubled past and that widower Andrew’s wife had committed suicide a decade earlier. All was set for grippingly tense psychosexual thriller.
Sadly, Liar was let down by two unnecessarily soapy late twists. It turned out that Laura’s ex was having a clandestine, chemistry-free affair with her sister. Then vengeful Laura posted a swivel-eyed rant on social media, publicly accusing Andrew of rape – undermining both her case and credibility. Neither plot development had the ring of authenticity. The script should have kept its tight focus on the “he said/she said” riddle.
Liar was reminiscent of Broadchurch, with whom it shared a director in James Strong. The coastal Kent setting was gorgeous, with architectural piers and alien-looking landscapes. Unfortunately, it found itself out-gimmicked and outgunned by its writers’ other creation, whodunitin-reverse Rellik over on BBC One.