What we expected from the first hour of this three-parter was a set-up episode, perhaps with a hook-in 'chaos' opener to set the scene before flashing back to the main story some hours/days/months/years before. We got what we expected, and, it must be said, quite a bit more besides
It wasn't a wordy script, so maybe it was just the top calibre acting from Morrissey and Hart, in particular, that made us care about the taxi driver struggling to make a living and dealing with gobby kids, a staid marriage, and stultifying middle age; we even cared about his longtime, ex-con mate. There wasn't anything particularly unexpected here, but we felt the allure of easy money in the face of dealing with his vile passengers (and their bodily excretions) and his growing horror at being confronted with what he'd previously refused to countenance: complicity in some very dark goings on.
There were moments of subtle humour in there too, which is rare (think 'Breaking Bad') and even more incredibly there were no glaringly obvious TWNH scenes where we just wanted to scoff knowingly and say that no-one in their right mind would do X or Y.
Bring on episodes two and three: the best thing so far this autumn.
If you are feeling a gaping hole where a depressing drama should be after the end of 'Southcliffe', look no further than 'What Remains', BBC1's new four-part offering for Sunday nights. Len Harper (David Threlfall, occasionally sporting Frank Gallagher's mumble), is that most-dramatised of detectives, the lonely cop facing an imminent, empty retirement. Then he gets called to an old house, divided into flats, in which a mummified body has been found in the attic.
We can't accuse this of lacking realism: the house and its basement flat owner bear more than a passing resemblance to the case of Joanna Yeates, while the scenario of a resident in a block dying and going unnoticed for years is spookily similar to the tragic end of Joyce Vincent. Basgallop weaves together these two premises in a suspenseful hour that introduces the late Melissa Young (Jessica Gunning, a staple of 'Law & Order: UK' and a standout in 'White Heat') and her unfriendly neighbours in the gloomy house. Incredulity aside about the assumption that she'd just left - it could happen and did to Joyce V - it did seem odd that the heavily pregnant Ms Khan would shin up a ladder into the loft, or opt to stay in her new flat which had a very unsavoury leak in the ceiling. And the line about the smell being hardly noticeable wasn't very convincing either.
Shaping up to be gripping, even if the thought that we are all so easily forgotten is a depressing one and says nothing positive about our fellows.
