After all these years, Cold Feet still radiates warmth
Wedding bells were ringing on (ITV) but for whom? The series opened with an irresistible sequence set at a handsome North Wales wedding venue, teasing us that one of the central characters was getting hitched. Again.
Spoiler: they weren’t. It was Spanish nanny Ramona (Jacey Salles) walking up the aisle in a red frock worthy of a Strictly paso doble. A slight swizz but when you’re rejoining characters this fondly familiar, all was soon forgiven.
As the much-loved Nineties relationship drama returned for its third revived run – it could be titled “Old Feet” nowadays – the five friends were still negotiating the pleasures and pitfalls of middle age. Waistlines were still thicker, hair ever thinner (with the exception of James Nesbitt’s hair implants), and personal lives remained tangled.
Since renewing their vows, romance was flourishing for sole surviving couple Jenny (Fay Ripley) and Pete (John Thomson) until some shock medical news sent Jen into a tailspin. Writer Mike Bullen has always served up something bitter with the sweetness. This potential breast cancer storyline promises to run all series and be a proper tear-jerker.
Meanwhile, hair-dyeing, Tinderswiping Adam (James Nesbitt) found himself chasing the same woman as his teenage son, prompting some home truths about his faded Lothario lifestyle: the twinkly Irishman needs to act his age before he becomes an embarrassment. But did I detect glimmers of potential passion with longtime pal Karen (Hermione Norris)?
There was still time in this pacy scene-setter for a dramatic canal rescue, a divorce settlement, a call centre staff rebellion and a range of parenting problems. As ever, the wry script was well-observed, the Manchester setting was handsomely shot and it all bounced along to a lively soundtrack. Thomson has recently admitted that the last series saw a dip in quality and momentum, but it was firing on all cylinders again here.
The cast might be looking careworn. Some of the show’s tricks – fantasy sequences, enviable kitchens, men sharing their problems over pub pints while women have heart-to-hearts over a cafetiere – might be tired. But after 22 years on-air, this superior midlife soap still radiates warmth and wit. It’s like catching up with old friends.
True Detective (Sky Atlantic) arrived from HBO with something to prove. The debut run of novelist Nic Pizzolatto’s crime anthology starred Matthew Mcconaughey and Woody Harrelson as Louisiana cops chasing a ritualistic serial killer over a period of 17 years. The result was ambitious, literate and one of the decade’s standout TV dramas.
However, its sprawling, Los Angeles-set sequel (starring Colin Farrell and Rachel Mcadams) was an unholy mess and notorious flop. So could it bounce back for its third series? On the evidence of its opening double bill, yessir, it sure could.
Wisely, Pizzolatto returned to his original formula: mismatched police partners who develop a grudging respect while investigating a macabre case that spans decades. Mahershala Ali and Stephen Dorff played cops investigating a child murder in Northwest Arkansas during the Eighties.
Just as the first series was elevated by Mcconaughey’s scene-stealing turn, this one was dominated by the mesmeric Ali (an Oscar-winner for Moonlight) as intuitive, introspective Detective Wayne Hays. In Vietnam, he’d been a long-range reconnaissance specialist nicknamed “Purple Hays” and he still bore the mental scars of war.
Ali’s subtle, soulful performance was spread across three eras: as a young cop looking into two children’s disappearance, as a hard-bitten middle-aged detective revisiting the case a decade later when new evidence came to light, and as a retiree, grappling with his fading memory while being interviewed for a Making a Murdererstyle true-crime documentary.
The opening episode ended with a dialogue-free six-minute scene when Hays peeled off from a police search party to expertly follow a trail through the Ozark mountains. Dread and tension built before he eventually found a boy’s corpse in a cave. The camera lingered on Ali’s face as his haunted eyes processed what he’d seen, then he strode back out into the gloom to seek the boy’s sister.
This was redneck noir: Twin Peaks meets Broadchurch, with a dash of
The Killing. Atmospheric and beguiling, True Detective had its hooks into me again.
Cold Feet ★★★ True Detective ★★★★