Doctor Who (BBC1) | iPlayer
Vanity Fair (ITV) | itv.com
A Dangerous Dynasty: House of Assad (BBC2) | iPlayer
The Bisexual (C4) | channel4.com
Women on the Verge (W) | Sky, Virgin, BT, TalkTalk
The Romanoffs (Amazon) | amazon.com
And so the march of the “monstrous regiment of women” continues to dominate our weekends, in a way I hope John Knox, 16th-century beardie founder of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, would have thoroughly, splutteringly disapproved. Foxy Knoxie, as he possibly wasn’t known in his day, has little at first sight to bind him to 21st-century male mores. Though whether imbuing an already cold religion with even more callous, thin-lipped disapproval in 1560, or posting online in 2018 your “outrage” at the fact that Doctor Who is a woman, a terribly useful phrase ought to span centuries – just don’t be a dick.
In the event, we hardly noticed that Jodie Whittaker was a woman: she was just, as she belatedly remembered, fizzing neurons having taken some time to rearrange themselves rather painfully as the Doctor. It was a lovely episode, often of firsts. First female doctor, first showing on the Sabbath (watch that blood-pressure Knoxie), but much more importantly the first episode I’ve understood for about five years. Rather than the achingly complex, self-referential meta-ness of backstory sculpting, for which you needed the wisdom of a small and irritatingly precocious five-year-old child, this was not the Doctor as some kind of space Jesus but as an excited immortal traveller, just saving things.
I have respect for Steven Moffatt’s sublime stint and I loved both Tennant and Capaldi and their clevernesses, but I think new writer Chris Chibnall has, by hauling ass back to basics, given us all a timely, hugely refreshing, gasp of air. Whittaker is, above all else, great at the wit. Not sure about the yellow braces, the chirpy glee of the costume: how’s that going to play in the darker downturns? Which, I hope, will follow: after all, Whittaker and Chibnall did meet on Broadchurch.
And Vanity Fair was wrapping up, way before time. It’s been immense – arch, wise, witty, nuanced – with Olivia Cooke one of the finds of the year. ITV should be immensely proud, and yet it had the outrageous black luck to begin on the same night as Bodyguard. And Killing Eve – I’m aware that it’s still technically running, though all available on catch-up, so I shouldn’t really spoil it – is simply getting searingly more fun every single week. Sandra Oh deserves every award going, but I’ll freely admit if ever I was going to fall a little in love with a fictional character, it might, dangerously, weirdly, be the sweet-natured Russo-Parisian psychopathic assassin Villanelle, who likes to chop off men’s penises. Oops, spoiler alert. But Jodie Comer’s moués are, still… to die for.
Back, reluctantly, to tyranty beardy blokes, or at least moustachy ones. The House of Assad had impeccable ’taches, to the point where one began to wonder whether there might be a reverse correlation between time spent finessing, moulding, loving facial hair and time spent thinking about morals or loving the country you purport to care for and yet somehow – ineluctably, accidentally almost! – seem to manage to bomb and torture without cease.
“Understand their saga,” came the voiceover at the start of Nick Green’s immense, forensic excision of the tumour at the heart of Syria, “and you’ll understand why their country now lies in ruins.” We began with strongman father Hafez, Syria’s dictator for almost 30 years. He would order women in his army to prove their loyalty by biting the heads off snakes. There was footage, shaming footage. We moved on, briefly: he would also order in turn his male soldiers to prove their loyalty by, on the parade ground, bayoneting living puppies. Honestly, the more you learned about that guy, the less there was to love.
Was it any wonder his sons turned out a bit… wacko? Not really, but one, Bashar, at least tried to attain a modicum of normalcy, working at the Western Eye hospital. Shy, rich, possibly talented, he could have made something, but his playboy brother (all his brothers seemed cursed: there was the cruel one, the playboy one, the druggie) whacked his Porsche into a wall and Bashar took over, with his splendid new wife, Asma, as shallow and fake as the investment funds she used to manage, in 2000. The family claws were in and modern history was about to begin. Bashar has, as was dispassionately proved by a long queue of wise talking heads, proved every bit as dynastic as his forefathers. With one difference. Father Hafez was cold, cruel, but clever. Middle-son Bashar, with everything to prove to a dead father, is wont to impulsiveness. I have no idea how much damage he might have done to eyeballs, in Paddington, had he been left in London: I suspect very little. The world knows almost exactly how much his middle-of-the-litter reactiveness has done to eyeballs in Syria.
The Bisexual kicked off on Channel 4, and was well trailed as “exploring… the last taboo”. It’s rather good, in its way, Desiree Akhavan and Maxine Peake as a broken lesbian couple exploring their options, but the last taboo… for whom, exactly? Turns out that this is the last taboo for lesbians, fancying a man. Crucially, it’s billed as a “comedy-drama” and yet, despite Peake and Akhavan, it’s not that funny. Also, um… having a reporter direct a photoshoot? Not even Press, Mike Bartlett’s ultimately so-so journalism drama, made that mistake.
Far more delightful was Women on the Verge, a wonderful adaptation, by the Observer’s friend and ex-colleague Lorna Martin, of her grand book Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Now set in Dublin, it’s spritzy and filthy and honestly, deeply funny, and has the imprimatur of Sharon Horgan, who will end up playing against type. It’s a three-lass vicious, honest comedy, and I still marvel at the fact there are still a number of 31-year-olds who haven’t written about being chucked/angsted/drunk/in love with the wrong man. Horgan and Martin have taken the bones of a confused depression of old and sprinkled some laughter and zhuzz. Thus something has been lost, something won. The three laugh-out-loud actresses are wonderful and so good to see Nina Sosanya back again.
The Romanoffs, coming from Matthew Weiner of Mad Men, is deeply lovely. It has been written off in some American quarters as a misfire. It’s certainly flawed: it’s a slightly tortured concept – some descendants (or are they?) of the doomed royal Russians live out their lives today – and thus hard to wrap your thinking gums around, and the episodes, at 90 minutes, are way too long. But stick with this – it’s got so many stories, beautifully realised (and filmed). Indulgent, passionate, clever, historically wise, often shocking.
