(Sky Atlantic) HBO’s adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels moved on to The Story of a New Name.
What we said: The Third Day: Autumn is a remarkable feat of live theatre and television, creating something that feels truly experimental, yet engaging a mesmeric spectacle comprising surprisingly little, yet one that feels impossible to turn away from. There was nothing like this on television in 2020. What made it special was Autumn a live, 12-hour, single-shot special that dragged Law to the very limits of human endurance.
(Sky Atlantic) The Third Day is a simple show about Jude Law going nuts on a vaguely pagan island off the coast of Essex. What we said: Insecure takes us to an important place and shows that all of the progress the girls made can be undone without the right people around them. When it returns to screens, here’s hoping it gets a little more love. He’s right Insecure is a gorgeous, complicated, bracingly contemporary examination of American Blackness. (Sky Comedy) Issa Rae and Larry Wilmore’s comedy-drama was so overlooked this year that Schitt’s Creek co-creator and star Dan Levy used his Emmy acceptance speech to bemoan its lack of nominations.
BEST NETFLIX SERIES UK TV
What we said: An emotional rollercoaster of a TV drama about Bethan, a Welsh teenager coming of age and living a double life as she negotiates mental illness, friendships and her sexuality. But it is a series of huge emotional heft, and an extraordinary achievement by writer Kayleigh Llewellyn, who surely has huge things ahead of her.
BEST NETFLIX SERIES UK SKIN
(BBC Three) On paper, In My Skin sounds so relentlessly bleak – a key scene involves a teenage girl seeing her father masturbate – that you’d wonder why anyone would ever want to watch it. Photograph: Huw John/BBC/Expectation Entertainment Ltd 45 In My SkinĮmotional heft … Gabrielle Creevy as Bethan, with Jo Hartley as her mum, in In My Skin. His family want to eat adventurous meals, while he would like to stick with steak. What we said: Hollander is superb as a man baffled by the need for change.
BEST NETFLIX SERIES UK FULL
A show about Tom Hollander struggling to cope with negative emotions is always welcome, but in 2020 it turns out that a gorgeously sad travelogue, full of places we can no longer visit, was exactly what everyone needed. (BBC One) An adaptation of David Nicholls’ 2014 novel, Us was a snapshot of a failing marriage, told across a grand tour of Europe. What we said: Such moments lift Save Me Too beyond your typical mystery, and give it far more emotional depth than most of its rivals.
Thanks in part to an incredible cast, including James, Stephen Graham, Lesley Manville and Adrian Edmondson – it more than matched the power of its predecessor. Given its slightly underpowered finale, a sequel was inevitable. (Sky Atlantic) Lennie James’ Save Me was one of the surprise hits of 2018 a taut, gut-wrenching examination of what happens in the space left by a missing child. 47 Save Me TooĮmotional depth … Lennie James in Save Me Too. We are privileged to be able to hear their stories. What we said: This is shamefully recent history, recent enough for some of those who lived through it to still be alive. The documentary was as stark as you’d expect, as people recounted their horrific experiences for what may very well be the last time – and it is impossible to forget. (BBC Two) An almost unbearably powerful and painful hour of television, this collection of interviews with the survivors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was hard to watch. What we said: It is a great story, made even greater because there is no harrowing suffering, no death and no catastrophic miscarriage of justice shown to be the result of systemic corruption that is featured in much of this genre. The ebullient FBI agent Doug Mathews was central to the show’s success, and possibly the best TV character of the entire year. Instead, this was a breathless retelling of the McDonald’s Monopoly scam that defrauded the fast food monolith of millions of dollars. (Sky Documentaries) An absolute rarity: a true crime documentary that doesn’t make the viewer feel grubbily complicit. What we said: Instead of hysteria and frantic Drama-with-a-capital-D in the face of an unknown contagion, it shows the disbelief giving way to hard acceptance, the sense of ordinary life suddenly intruded upon and a new normal mandated. Though based on the lives of ordinary people, such as Anne-Marie Duff’s Wiltshire council worker Tracy Daszkiewicz, the circumstances were anything but. No, not Covid, but the poisoning of the Skripal family – among other victims – in Salisbury, which was dramatised in this fine three-part drama. (BBC One) A shocking health crisis that startled Britain and called for urgent intervention from the authorities.
0 kommentar(er)
