SOME readers stray beyond free-to-watch TV channels; so I will comment on Netflix’s latest series of The Diplomat (from 31 October). Given last week’s political events in the United States, I derived great, if masochistic, pleasure from immersion in a fictional world in which the Democratic Party exercised full power.
More than that, the scenario depends on Washington’s treating the UK not merely as a terminally washed-up post-imperial hulk with a nice line in picturesque ceremonial, but a really important world player; so, therefore, not so much fiction as fantasy.
The wildcard US Ambassador to the Court of St James is a young free spirit, brilliant, and sitting lightly to fastening her clothes properly or brushing her hair. Her husband, Hal, by turns either her guiding genius or Svengali, has all these attributes (minus the clothes and hair ones) in spades. The plot is preposterous, but the characterisations, dialogue, and pace are fabulously witty and compelling.
Unfortunately, true UK crime continues to provide the basis of many leading TV productions: last week saw, two fed our insatiable appetite for vile attacks on young women. Until I Kill You (ITV1, four parts from 3 November) was particularly disturbing, retelling the story of the years and years that it took before John Sweeney was finally locked away after two murders and the attempted murder of Delia Balmer.
Based on the real Ms Balmer’s book, it told the story through her eyes, in a remarkable performance by Anna Maxwell Martin. Here, the all-enveloping miasma of terror, the living hell of a violent, abusive relationship, received more than usual depth because of Ms Balmer’s personality. Maxwell Martin dared to relish her abrasive, tricky, suspicious nature — biting every hand that sought to feed her, deliberately feeding her hatred of the police and judicial systems that, whatever they set out to do, consistently failed, over decades, to keep her safe.
Lucan (BBC2, three parts from 6 November) is a docudrama with far subtler psychological complexity than expected. This is the story of Neil Berriman, who discovered that he was actually the son of Sandra Rivett, the nanny whom Lord Lucan is suspected of bludgeoning to death in 1974.
Mr Berriman, utterly convinced that Lucan is still alive, has devoted his life to avenging his mother’s death, teaming up with a freelance journalist who, similarly, has pursued this scoop of a lifetime. Perhaps this quest’s most profound aspect — is their Australian suspect the Earl, masquerading as a Buddhist monk, or is he merely a retired Canadian drag artist? — is its portrayal of obsession, and how it can eat away at a life and the lives of all those near by.