The Secrets

One of BBC1's half-hour-each-weeknight dramas, all on the Secrets theme and quite starry.  This first episode has Olivia Colman reluctant to help her mother Alison Steadman commit suicide.  Hard to know what to say since this may not be representative of the whole series, but this was very depressing for a Sunday night.  The obvious counterpoint of Olivia Colman's pregnancy (death and birth, the cycle of life, yes?) and the incidental humour of Alison Steadman's smoking a joint didn't relieve the bleakness much, and the legal arguments were largely sidelined.  Yet surely it was the legal status of assisted suicide which made this a secret at all?  What made this watchable were the performances of the three leads, understated to such a degree we wondered if the dialogue was improvised.  If the rest of the acting is of this calibre, the remaining episodes will be worth watching.