A gasp-inducing finale that won’t be forgotten
When last week’s episode of
Unforgotten (ITV, Sunday) ended with creepy doctor Tim Finch (Alex Jennings) being led away in handcuffs, one couldn’t help wondering whether the most compelling drama of the summer had accidentally peaked too soon.
We needn’t have worried. The real suspense came instead in the supremely gripping opening half of last night’s terrific, emotion-tugging finale in which investigators DCI Cassie Stuart (Nicola Walker) and DI Sunny Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar) were devastated to discover the key evidence they had found in Finch’s house didn’t tie him to the murder. Only for it to, subsequently, pull them in a still darker direction – to another, earlier murder and the wholly unanticipated possibility that they had a serial killer of adolescent girls on their hands.
There followed some strikingly intense, wonderfully well-acted interview-room scenes, and an admission of guilt by Finch that could stand among the most gasp-inducing ever. But what was more remarkable about Unforgotten was that this was far from the end of the story.
It is a tribute to writer Chris Lang, director Andy Wilson and the superb cast that they managed to sustain the drama in high gear for a further 30 minutes by putting the focus on the aftermath of Finch’s admission and its effect on survivors – the network of friends and family members who had been drawn into the investigation, and who we spent so much of the series getting to know. And on the cops, too, especially Cassie Stuart, for whom exhaustion, the mounting list of victims, Finch’s icy lack of remorse and her own exposure to too much horror down the years finally took its toll.
We closed with Cassie on extended leave, laying flowers at the victim’s grave and talking with Sunny about “fresh beginnings” and having had enough of police work. It felt very much like The End for these most empathetic of investigators. But perhaps we shouldn’t be too unhappy.
There’s no doubting that ITV would love to see this rare hit come back for a fourth series. Lang has said that he would be keen to write it but only if, crucially not when, he could assemble the same, phenomenally busy core team again. As such, Unforgotten’s close was a classic case of saying goodbye but leaving the door ajar for a return visit should the opportunity arise further down the road. And we would all welcome that.
Eight Go Rallying: The Road to Saigon (BBC Two, Sunday) was as pointless a star vehicle as we’ve seen in a while. In it four “celebrity duos” (Martin and Shirlie Kemp, TV chef Andi Oliver and her daughter Miquita, rapper Tinchy Stryder and Rizzle Kicks singer Jordan Stephens, TV presenter Noel Edmonds and his wife Liz) embarked on a 3,000km road trip through Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Supposedly they were joining a famous classic car rally but, as was made clear from the start, they weren’t actually allowed to take part in the main event. Which was probably just as well, given that two of the eight didn’t possess a driving licence and only one – Edmonds – had any rallying experience.
What we got instead was a farce but without much in the way of humour. The “classic British rally cars” they were provided with – a Hillman imp, a Mini 1000, a 1959 Morris Minor and an MGB BT – were pathetic. They were so underpowered that all but one were unable to cope with the road conditions and kept breaking down. In the only real moment of rallying, a time trial on the second day, the Kemps came off the road and flipped their Mini on its roof. It was a miracle they emerged without serious injury. By day three, two of the four cars were write-offs and half the participants were doing the “rally” by taxi.
There wasn’t even much in the way of originality on offer. We’ve seen such roads traversed more engagingly by car and motorcycle in everything from Top Gear to World’s Most Dangerous Roads and Without Limits. In other hands, it might have been an enjoyable romp. But so many of the mishaps seemed attributable to poor planning, even incompetence, on the part of the programme-makers that it was impossible to continue believing in the concept. In the end you just had to feel sorry for the participants, who were all game enough but completely out of their depth – and ended up on the road to nowhere with this series.
Unforgotten ★★★★★
Eight Go Rallying: The Road to Saigon ★★