Series falls over the line in barely credible finale
Bloodlands BBC1, Sunday
House Of The Dragon Sky Atlantic, Monday
Doctor Who BBC One, Sunday
Jimmy Carr Destroys Art Channel 4, Tuesday
A Sporting Chance RTÉ One, Thursday
It was a week of series finales, though with varying degrees of success. In BBC1’s Bloodlands, bent copper Tom Brannick’s daughter Izzy finally found out about his true nature. Kidnapped by an American gangster, the aptly named Brian Savage, looking for the return of £4m worth of his gold, she ended up in a fourway confrontation with her father (James Nesbitt) and his accomplice Olivia Foyle (Victoria Smurfit, delightfully chewing the lovely scenery in the background).
To her horror, Izzy then learned that her father already knew that Birdy, the young policeman she had fallen in love with, was dead, even as he faithfully promised he would do all in his power to find him. What followed was chaos. Brannick blew up Savage with an exploding briefcase. Savage shot Brannick in the leg. Olivia attempted to kill Brannick, but Izzy shot and killed her first, and the last we saw was a drone shot of the entire grisly scene. Unlike the first series, which at least had some credibility, this follow-up was just a little too fantastical. Any other police force would have been a great deal more suspicious of Brannick than proved the case, with only the late Birdy smelling a rat.
Brannick’s deputy, Niamh (Charlene McKenna) knows at this stage that her boss was responsible for the disappearance of a key witness, who he actually shot and killed, but is that enough to sustain a third series? In truth, it’s probably all best left where it ended, at a lighthouse on the Co. Down coast. For once, the only way isn’t up.
Much better was the last episode of series one of Sky Atlantic’s House Of The Dragon.
It wasn’t without faults, as leaps forward in time from childhood to adulthood of the main characters made it difficult to get to know any of them in great detail, and without knowing them, it was hard to root for them. The exception was Princess Rhaenyra, now the disputed Queen and played magnificently by Emma D’Arcy.
After years of childbirth (and a particular gruesome stillbirth in this finale), the once feisty girl has become a more rounded and mature woman.
Faced with the prospect of war, she is the one who talks the hawks down from the precipice and tries to think of workable solutions to keep the peace. The intriguing thing about this programme all along has been the focus on politics rather than bloodshed, on the power of alliances and how easily they can be undone.
So confident is Rhaenyra that this peace can be achieved, she sends her young son Lucerys as an envoy to seek the support of Lord Borros. In a nail-biting duel of dragons, Lucerys was killed, and Rhaenyra now seems set to avenge him. After a shaky start, the game of thrones is on with gusto, and the second series can’t come soon enough.
D’Arcy was not the only great performer along the way. Matt Smith was chilling and charming in equal measure as Prince Daemon, and Paddy Considine foppish and weak as King Vicerys, but the real star was Rhys Ifans as the king’s counsel, Ser Otto Hightower, a man who placed his own interests above those of the kingdom.
There will, I suspect, be a few of these names in next year’s Emmy shakedown.
There was something oddly moving about Jodie Whittaker’s final appearance as Doctor Who, when she transformed back into David Tennant, a funny conceit by showrunner Chris Chibnall, before the real new doctor Ncuti Gatwa debuts next year.
The most emotional moment came when the doctor said goodbye to companion Yaz, who at one point looked like becoming a genuine love interest. And there was something deeply touching about the first meeting of a support group for all former companions, a nice nod to the show’s stellar past in this centenary year of the BBC.
If this was good, Jimmy Carr Destroys Art was useless. There is a serious conversation to be had about whether or not we can separate artists from art, but this wasn’t it, as the audience decided whether or not to save or destroy paintings by Rolf Harris, Adolf Hitler, and others. It’s a weird contradiction that is often down to personal interpretation. I haven’t played a Michael Jackson record since I saw the documentary about the boys he sexually abused, but I still listen to dozens of records produced by Phil Spector, who actually was a convicted murderer.
Where we draw the line always is going to be an interesting debate, but presenting it as gameshow was laughably unserious.
Finally, Joanne O’Riordan made a fascinating documentary about the participation of women in sport, and how the physical issues they face, many related to menstruation, are rarely discussed.
There was much in A Sporting Chance that I had never considered, because it never affected me personally. O’Riordan thoughtfully laid out the challenges and how best to approach them, and all with the benefit of reliable science.
It was a reminder of how inclusion can lift all boats, not least when it comes to the simple respect in the likes of proper changing facilities and, in professional sport, the same opportunities to be paid and attract sponsorship – especially since Irish women are winning everything before them while the men are falling behind.