New Worlds

This is the sequel to 2008's 'The Devil's Whore' which had a starry cast (Andrea Riseborough, Dominic West, John Simm, Michael Fassbender, Maxine Peake and Peter Capaldi, to name a few) and some well-phrased moments but was essentially a missed opportunity for original historical drama.  Freed from the constraints of a source text or a biopic, it featured a fictional character living through the turbulent years of the English Civil War, but the heroine, Angelica Fanshawe (then Andrea Riseborough, now Eve Best) took an improbably romantic journey through every major issue and player of the day.  The original drama left her back in her ancestral home, with a new baby daughter and an enlightened view of the world.

So, this wasn't exactly eagerly anticipated by us, and the synopsis of two parallel (and inevitable) romances taking place in England and America seemed to be aimed squarely at fans of Philippa Gregory.  Those fans won't have been disappointed.  Everyone looks impossibly lovely and clean (Dornan is a model, and with 'The Fall' is the only recognisable actor here, although Hope is played by Jane Campion's daughter Alice Englert and Freya Mavor (Beth) was previously in the adaptation of Gregory's 'The White Queen').  Both 'worlds', England and Massachussetts, are depicted as lands of fierce struggle, against which backdrop our two pairs of lovers experience the sort of 'their eyes met...' epiphanies that have them changing the course of their lives in mere minutes.  There is clumsy exposition, to explain the back story, and equally clumsy visual symbolism with white nighties, fresh and copious blood, dark woods and bedraggled heroines.  The American chapter is basically a 'first of the Mohicans', complete with the spectacular, deliberate fall from a cliff and a scalping.

Most disappointing of all is the childlike black and white depiction of the English Civil Wars as simple struggles by the liberal and the poor against a wicked tyrant King who wants to rule without Parliament.  Charles II may have been other than a Merry Monarch to many of his subjects, but he's portrayed here as a virtual Caligula.  This seemed to have more in common with 'The Musketeers' than any serious adult drama, not least the very 21st Century women who take up arms and pursue their men with the zest of post-sexual revolution feminists.  Hard to believe that Flannery was responsible for 'Our Friends in the North'.

White Heat

TV producers, and presumably viewers, have a longstanding preoccupation with the love lives of groups of friends, a la 'Cold Feet' and 'This Life'.  Seemingly we love to see people form deep friendships and betray each other.  'White Heat' takes this format and adds a 'Big Chill' opening (the death of one of the group) and a big dose of social history straight from 'Our Friends in the North'.


First episodes are often awkward, bearing the burden of introducing everyone and generally setting the scene.  The scene looks prop-perfect and the performances are as good as anyone would expect from a classy cast, which provides a gloss over the unsubtleties.  It's an ok ride so far, but a slow one, with only marginally engaging characters.  The six flatmates are very PC for 1965: gender balance; the men a gay Asian, a Caribbean, and a Northener; the women an arty blonde, a brainy brunette and a poor overweight Catholic.  There are three initial attractions pointing to pairings that will of-course rearrange over time.  And just in case you forget which time they're all in, there's plenty of television and radio reminding you of events, and a soundtrack almost as intrusive as that of 'Heartbeat'.  Nothing by The Who and no mention of an ailing Churchill, however, can detract from anachronisms like telling a girl to take out her aggression in the gym.  Boxing gym?  She'd be waiting a long time for a Fitness First.


Comparisons to 'Our Friends...' are inevitable, and not discouraged by the BBC, but this may prove to be a double-edged sword.