John Byrne catches several new and returning shows including The Leftovers, a new sitcom set in the 1970s and a documentary series about the early days of Indie music.
Reviewed: The Leftovers (Monday, Sky Atlantic); From Darkness (Sunday, BBC One); The Kennedys (Friday, BBC One); You, Me and the Apocalypse (Wednesday, Sky Atlantic); Music for Misfits (Friday, BBC Four).
Before season two of The Leftovers (Monday, Sky Atlantic) arrived, fans were well signposted that there would be major changes. But even the phrase 'major changes' was something of an understatement. This was like watching an entirely different show.
Season one had been a riveting, if pretty depressing, tale of how people in a town in New York state were coping with the loss, three years earlier, of many loved ones as a result of the Sudden Departure, a moment when 2% of the planet's population inexplicably and instantaneously disappeared.
The story focused on the Garvey family who, we were told, would relocate to Texas in season two. But, given that former Lost showrunner Damon Lindelof is an exec producer and co-creator of The Leftovers, I was expecting a little bit more than that. Maybe something like the opening episode of season three in Lost, where viewers were introduced to the people we'd know as The Others. What we got was something else again.
The opening ten minutes, which was preceded by a brand new (and very 1970s) title sequence, focused on a time in the distant past, when humans still dwelled in caves. The central character was a pregnant woman who lost everyone in her group after an earthquake, then gave birth to a baby and died after being bitten by a snake.
As her body lay beside a small lake/watering hole, the camera panned to the present, where a group of teenagers were swimming in a spot just feet away from where she had died, thousands of years before. We were off and running.
What followed was an introduction to life in the Texas town of Jarden, rebranded as 'Miracle' by locals, because none of its residents had disappeared during the Sudden Departure. The story gradually focused on the Murphy family, most of whom seem to be a little quirky, especially father John who has a unique take on firefighting. You get the impression that there's a lot more going on underneath the surface here.
Just as viewers had gotten used to the Murphy family set-up, some of the characters from season one of The Leftovers began to appear. First was Christopher Eccleston's former reverend Matt Jamison, and his paralyzed wife. Then, as the episode enters its final third, Kevin Garvey (Justin Theroux), Nora (Carrie Coon) and family move in next door to the Murphys. Weirdness ensued.
Right at the end, the Murphy's daughter Evie and her friends disappear, with their car found at the waterside where the episode started. Looks like the Sudden Departure hasn't gone away, and The Leftovers is back, and almost entirely made over.
In comparison to the wilful mind games of The Leftovers, From Darkness (Sunday, BBC One) was a much more straightforward experience, which was both reassuring and disappointing.
Bodies turn up in Manchester, and may be linked to the disappearance of three prostitutes 15 years before, and before you know it, DCI John Hind (Johnny Harris) is off to some Scottish island to try and entice his former partner Claire Church (the always watchable Anne-Marie Duff) to help with enquiries.
She'd long quit the force, for reasons unknown, but back in the day she worked on the prostitutes' case. Her analysis of the situation then was ignored, but now it seems she was correct. Eventually, she consents to Hind's requests and heads to Manchester. You know the drill.
It's not so far offering anything new, and its pace is a little slow, but there's enough in From Darkness to encourage another look. Only just, though. These gloomy, moody cop dramas are far too prevalent these days.
Funny comedies are much less common on the Beeb, so it was with dutiful indifference that I switched on The Kennedys (Friday, BBC One), the latest offering from a broadcaster that used to throw out great sitcoms for, well, fun.
That was back in decades such as the 1970s, which is where this new show is set. Just like Cradle to the Grave, based on Danny Baker's autobiography, which currently runs on BBC Two, The Kennedys is an adaptation of a memoir covering the decade of flares, chopper and space hoppers. This time it's writer and actress Emma Kennedy's The Tent, The Bucket and Me.
Starring Katherine Parkinson (IT Crowd and Humans) and her husband Harry Peacock, it centres on a family living in Stevenage New Town, where ten-year-old Emma (Lucy Hutchison) witnesses her parents attempting to host something called a 'dinner party'. Annoyingly, the show's central plank seems to be how silly everything back then seems in a modern context. Even more annoying is the fact that there wasn't a single funny line in the entire episode.
I had thought I'd watch anything with Katherine Parkinson in the cast, but I was wrong.
Rob Lowe has smartly reinvented himself in recent years, thanks mainly to a stint on the excellent Parks and Recreation, and has yet another humorous role in You, Me and the Apocalypse (Wednesday, Sky Atlantic). This dramedy is so far on the right side of wacky, offering a near future where the world is endangered by an asteroid on a direct collision course and a rather motley bunch of disparate folk are gradually drawn together and may be the collective key to mankind's survival.
Lowe stars as a foul-mouthed priest who literally plays devil's advocate, Mathew Baynton (The Wrong Mans) doubles as estranged twin brothers Jamie and Ariel Conroy - the former's a Joe Soap in a bank, while the latter's a cyber-terrorist. Quintessential cockney Pauline Quirke plays their mother, while US Office star Jenna Fischer is a librarian in prison for a crime she didn't commit.
As ever with pilot episodes like this, the opener merely scratched at the surface as the ensemble cast began their characters' respective journeys. I'll definitely be back for more.
Finally, Music for Misfits: The Story of Indie (Friday, BBC Four) opened its three-part series on the UK independent record scene, beginning with punk trailblazers Buzzcocks and ending with 19-year-old Johnny Marr from The Smiths heading to Rough Trade with his band's demo, looking for a deal. The inbetween bits were mesmerising.
Fascinating, informative and pretty much definitive, this opener offered a glorious and quite frank look at a time of great flux in the UK music industry, with local labels such as Factory, Postcard and Two Tone making their distinctive marks and threatening the hegemony of the majors. It even featured aural anarchists Throbbing Gristle, which was nice. You won't ever see acts like that on The X Factor.
John Byrne
