Life is short and time is finite, and nobody can possibly be expected to watch more than one Nicola Walker television series at once. Sadly, though, nature is currently conspiring against by handing us two Nicola Walker crime vehicles at once. On BBC One, Walker currently stars in the brooding detective drama River. On ITV, meanwhile, Walker currently stars in the brooding detective drama Unforgotten.
Both shows are very good, and Nicola Walker is exceptional in both of them, but imagine the madness that would ensue if you tried to watch River and Unforgotten in the same week. Storylines would get mixed up. Character traits would blend into one. You’d barely be able to tell one scene of hushed solemnity from another. Watching both shows would be a mistake of incredible proportions, so let’s approach this mathematically. Working from a set number of categories, let’s pit Nicola Walker against Nicola Walker and figure out which Nicola Walker show you should be watching. Spoilers abound, obviously.
Nicola Walker’s profession
River: Police officer.
Unforgotten: Police officer.
Winner: Draw
Most exciting crime that Nicola Walker will solve
River: Her own death (I did warn you about spoilers)
Unforgotten: A decades-old murder that nobody really seems to care about.
Winner: River
Most mournful Nicola Walker vehicle?
River: Unbearably mournful.
Unforgotten: Unbearably mournfu… oh, wait, this is a tie.
Winner: Draw
Most important Nicola Walker
River: Turns up in the very first scene, and speaks before the lead character.
Unforgotten: Not only does she speak first, but she’s also the very first name on the credits.
Winner: Unforgotten.
Most sidekicky Nicola Walker
River: Exceptionally sidekicky, to the extent that she’s able to list all the Weight Watchers points contained in a niçoise salad.
Unforgotten: Not sidekicky at all. In fact, this version of Nicola Walker actually has her own sidekick, and I don’t even expect that he knows how many points are in any type of salad.
Winner: River.
Most brooding Nicola Walker
River: Hardly brooding at all, given all that salad business.
Unforgotten: Relatively brooding, but apparently this is just because it’s the sort of show that requires a brooding police officer as the lead character.
Winner: Unforgotten
Most dead Nicola Walker
River: Unbelievably dead, right from the get-go.
Unforgotten: Probably not dead at all. She does spend loads of time around dead people, though. Does that count? Winner: River.
Most tonally jarring disco song that Nicola Walker sings during the first episode
River: I Love to Love by Tina Charles, in its entirety.
Unforgotten: Sunny by Boney M, but only a couple of lines.
Winner: River.
Happiest Nicola Walker
River: During a scene where she forces the old policeman she’s haunting to perform a heartbreakingly grief-stricken karaoke number.
Unforgettable: During a scene where she has a discussion about the statute of limitations on murder.
Winner: Draw, because, actually, neither of these scenarios are particularly happy.
Most believable Nicola Walker
River: Not very believable at all, because she doesn’t appear to be very upset by the fact that she’s dead.
Unforgettable: Very believable, because she’s a police officer who seems permanently bummed out.
Winner: Unforgotten
Who’s that starring alongside Nicola Walker?
River: Stellan Skarsgård? Yes. Eddie Marsan? Yes. Jimmy Page? No, that’s just a policeman who looks identical to Jimmy Page.
Unforgettable: Cherie Lunghi? Yes. Tom Courtenay? Yes. Alan Sugar? No, that’s Trevor Eve doing an inexplicable Alan Sugar impression.
Winner: Unforgotten
How many dead people co-star with Nicola Walker?
River: So many dead people. In fact, I’m starting to suspect that everyone in River is dead, and that Skarsgård is hallucinating them all, and that this will turn out to be an incredibly upsetting remake of I Am Legend set within the confines of an enviably well-stocked John Lewis homeware department.
Unforgotten: So far, just one, although that person is just about as dead as you can get.
Winner: River
Things that Nicola Walker is most likely to lose screentime due to
River: Shots of Skarsgård going purple in the face as he runs up some stairs, endless unnecessary slow-motion footage, nice furniture, the viewers’ unshakable belief that they’re actually watching Luther.
Unforgotten: Shots of a vicar singing One Direction songs, loads of unconnected people doing unconnected things in different parts of the country, the viewers’ unshakable belief that they’re actually watching River.
Winner: River
If Nicola Walker wasn’t in it
River: It would just be a series about Stellan Skarsgård riding around on the DLR while staring mournfully into the middle distance.
Unforgotten: It would literally just be some footage of a man staring at some bones.
Winner: River
Result
It’s official. In a near-whitewash, River Nicola Walker beats Unforgotten Nicola Walker into a cocked hat. If you’re going to watch one Nicola Walker, watch that. But don’t watch both, or I’ll have just massively wasted my time here.
