Remember that series a couple of years ago with Christopher Eccleston as Robert, the proprietor of a Lake District house as magnificently doomy and gloomy as his face, who gave shelter to crime victims in need of a secure place to stay? You do? Well, it’s back. You don’t? No matter – it’s not really back. It’s got a new protagonist – Tom, played by Stephen Moyer, who is more of a scrappy terrier than Eccleston’s rangy, watchful wolfhound – and a new location: Anglesey. It’s the television equivalent of the philosopher’s axe – if you replace all the parts, is it still the same thing?
The new Safe House (ITV) certainly performs the same function as the original, delivering a serviceable plot without demanding too much in the way of intellectual or emotional investment (because who has any left of either by Thursday, for heaven’s sake? It’s nearly the weekend). In this first episode of four, somebody abducts a woman, Julie Delaney, from her home using the same MO (build an elaborate tent out of plastic sheeting in the house while the family’s out, clonk patriarch on head when they come home, tie him to a chair and make him watch as frightened wife is dragged away; let traumatised offspring escape) as someone called the Crow used to abduct three others eight years ago. A man called Luke Griffin was arrested and imprisoned for the crimes.
Tom is a former detective who worked the original cases. He was sure then and is even surer now that Griffith did not work alone and that the real Crow is still out there. His superiors pooh-poohed that idea then and they pooh-pooh it now, even though there seems no earthly reason why they should pooh-pooh or have pooh-poohed such a reasonable idea at either stage. But we must frustrate our hero somehow. So the pooh-poohing continues, especially from a detective on the current case called Ollie, who seems to be the pooh-pooher-in-chief.
Tom also reckons that the Crow’s motive was to make the husbands left behind suffer. This seems an odd conclusion to draw. Why not the children left behind? Why not – uh – the women taken away and who have never been seen since? Julie, by the way, is currently tied to a chair in a Portacabin in a deserted warehouse. She’s not having a particularly good time. But Tom is the hero and therefore arbitrarily vouchsafed insights the rest of us are not.
While Tom is trailing Julie’s partner John and trying to stop him being a dickhead, Tom’s girlfriend Sam (Zoe Tapper) is readying the safe house and fending off the unwanted attentions of local handyman Craig.
By the end of the episode we have Luke Griffin avidly watching the latest case on the news from jail, Craig watching Sam from his motorbike (and roaring away when she spots him), and John and Danni (Julie’s daughter) watching their lives crash and burn from the safe house. Whether many will be watching this second-tier stuff next week depends, I suspect, mostly on the weather. It will do for a rainy autumn evening. Otherwise, I suggest you try and squeeze in one last barbecue instead.
Tin Star (Sky Atlantic) is an altogether more potent prospect. The plot and performances have you slavering for more from the off. The Worth family – who bicker and banter wholly convincingly – have recently arrived in a tiny Canadian town for a new start. We don’t know why they need a new start but Tim Roth, playing the husband, Jim, is simmering with latent everything. He is the town’s new police chief.
All is peaceful until an oil company arrives and the townspeople find themselves at odds with this invading power – and each other. The corrupting effects of oil money are quickly but vividly drawn. Christina Hendricks plays Mrs Bradshaw, North Stream Oil’s corporate shill, who placates and riles the inhabitants as needed. Her boss urges Jim to cooperate, but it is not in his nature.
A woman who lodged a federal complaint about the company’s behaviour is blacklisted and forced out of her job. She is found dead in her car, a supposed suicide. Jim’s continuing opposition soon leads to an attack on his home and they flee to Calgary. They are found on the road and a single shot kills his five-year-old son and possibly fatally injures his wife. Jim tears off his bloody shirt in the hospital bathroom. He has a large snake tattoo on his back. Another version of Jim stares back, unblinkingly, from the mirror. We’re about to learn why they needed a new start.
