Scottish Daily Mail

After a blip, this could be ITV’s best drama since Broadchurc­h

- CLAUDIA CONNELL CHRISTOPHE­R STEVENS is away.

There have been so many TV dramas in recent months that started off in a blaze of glory, only to unravel completely in later episodes.

Last night, it was beginning to look as if Liar (ITV) was heading the same way.

In the third episode, Dennis Walters (played by Peter Davison) came out of the woodwork from Laura Nielson’s past. A former headmaster at the school where she’d previously taught, she had accused him of sexual harassment, only to retract her allegation.

he contacted Dr Andrew earlham (the man Laura has accused of rape) and offered to give police a statement vouching for her unreliabil­ity. Only later did it emerge that Mr Walters was a lecherous creep who had indeed behaved inappropri­ately towards Laura.

Next came a 20-minute segment where the storyline became implausibl­y ridiculous. Laura accompanie­d Makeda, one of her pupils who was experienci­ng a miscarriag­e, to hospital. The father of the baby was Dr earlham’s son, Luke.

And if that was too much of a coincidenc­e, Dr earlham (a heart surgeon who just happened to be hanging around A&e) was persuaded by Laura, his accuser, to lie to Makeda’s parents about what was wrong with her. It was plain daft, and an unnecessar­y scene that added nothing to the drama.

Thankfully it was a blip, and the final ten minutes turned out to be the most thrilling so far.

The Crown Prosecutio­n Service decided it was not going to prosecute the rape case, and when the female detective went to Dr earlham’s home to deliver the news, he made a very clumsy pass at her.

Throughout the episode, we saw more flashbacks to Laura and Andrew’s date, where he had mocked her for having a large fluffy toy in her living room. For the first time, we also saw that Andrew had slipped something into her drink.

Dejected by the news that, yet again, she had not been believed, Laura returned to her flat only to realise — in the last chilling scene — that her cuddly toy was wearing the earring she’d earlier left behind at Andrew’s house. All indication­s were that he was guilty, off the hook, and out for revenge.

With three episodes still to go, there have to be further twists, but it’s on track to become the best ITV drama since Broadchurc­h.

You’d love to think that every- thing about W1A (BBC2), in which the Beeb makes fun of its ludicrous political correctnes­s, is so daft as to be implausibl­e. The reality is you can so easily imagine it all happening.

Last night’s episode focused on the BBC’s hapless attempts at coming up with a plan to ‘best welcome a cross-dressing presenter into the BBC family’.

Former Premier League player ryan Chelford had his heart set on being a sports pundit. The only problem was he was as thick as mince, with the vocabulary of a toddler. But that didn’t matter: he wore lipstick and heels, so he had to be found a role.

According to marketing moron Siobhan Sharpe (the brilliant Jessica hynes) the solution was obvious: ‘If you want to be the best duck hunter, you have to go where the ducks are,’ was one of her nonsensica­l gems.

Back-up was called for in the form of the head of Diversity and the head of Inclusivit­y, both shortly to be replaced by a head of empowermen­t as part of the BBC’s ‘more of less’ initiative.

In the end, it was decided that ryan would be found a job on the next series of Top Gear. Although, on reflection, perhaps he wouldn’t have been quite such a disaster as Chris evans.

W1A is laugh-out-loud funny, but sometimes you do have to remind yourself you’re not actually watching a fly-on-thewall documentar­y.

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