The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Coincidences a bit too convenient for NY drama
CITY ON FIRE
The shooting of a student in Central Park is the incident that kicks off Apple TV’s flawed but certainly addictive City On Fire.
This eight-part adaptation of Garth Risk Hallberg’s acclaimed 944-page debut novel does away with the 1970s setting, and instead shifts the action forward in time to a post-9/11 New York City.
My biggest issue with the series is a flaw that’s baked into the source material – the way the characters find themselves embroiled with each other frequently strains credulity.
Very few of the relationships feel entirely natural and all too often rely on convenient coincidences to bring characters into each other’s orbit.
I’M A CELEBRITY
I’m not convinced we’re going to get a repeat of I’m A Celebrity... South Africa.
This pre-recorded spinoff has simply reinforced how important the live
TV audience is to the success of the show.
In saying all that, the series’ lone triumph was the single-most stomachchurning (and hilarious) trial in the history of the show – Joe Swash and Dean Gaffney’s drinking challenge that left the set awash with vomit.
RACE TRIUMPH
Race Across The World (BBC1) ended its first post-Covid series this week and it was another absolute triumph.
It would have been so easy to turn the show into an aggressively competitive endeavour and handpick contestants who would have happily stepped on each other to get to the finish line first.
Thankfully though, the producers went in the other direction and chose competitors with deeply personal reasons for taking part and who each seemed like genuinely nice people.
It says a lot about the series that when it got to the final episode I honestly didn’t care who won because they were each so deserving.