Humans

Joe Hawkins (Tom Goodman-Hill) buys a synth in a sale and calls her Anita (Gemma Chan).  Synths are synthetic humans, aka androids, who serve their employers in whatever way they wish.  Sounds great?  It goes without saying that things aren't quite what they seem.  A quick flashback to only a few weeks earlier reveals that 'Anita' was one of a handful of renegade synths who were led by human Leo (Colin Morgan) to freedom, before being recaptured.  These particular products were given 'singularity', i.e. consciousness.  Oops.  Joe's wife Laura (Katherine Parkinson, who won our sympathy in 'The Honourable Woman') is suspicious of the sleekly perfect new presence in their lives, whose responses are just a little too pat for her liking.  Meanwhile Dr. Millican (William Hurt) turns down super-synth Vera (Rebecca Front) in order to hang onto to a malfunctioning model he's possibly become fond of... or who just knows too much, while a policeman (Neil Maskell) is hunting that same older model for causing a disturbance, and a synthetic prostitute is developing very negative feelings indeed. 

So far (one of eight) it's familiar SF ground, well covered by classics like 'Blade Runner' and 'Terminator'... and not-quite-such-classics as 'I, Robot'.  Advance blurb described this as a cross between 'Black Mirror' and a treatise on the nature of consciousness, and that describes it pretty well.  It's good enough to cover the human interest angles well, though, and the story is building nicely.  If the inherent silliness of pretending that the currently impossible is reality deters you, then this probably isn't going to be your bag, but so far this is high-end SF nonsense.

Sunday nights on UK TV this summer are clearly all about jam: ITV serves it up cosily with the trials of the village WI amidst spitfires and sandbags; C4 brings a humanoid who can't stop telling you that your favourite flavour is apricot....

In the Club

We have to hand it to Kay Mellor.  Who else could write a soapy drama about six pregnant women that is in any way watchable to anyone not obsessed with pregnancy?

Diane (Jill Halfpenny) has just found out she's expecting twins, only to discover that her husband Rick (Will Mellor) was made redundant months ago and has run up large debts; Roanna (Hermione Norris) is in the throes of a bitter divorce while expecting a baby with her younger lover Simon (Luke Thompson); Kim (Katherine Parkinson, fresh from a pregnancy in 'The Honourable Woman') is having a baby with her partner Susie (Tara Fitzgerald), whose ex-partner Neil (Jonathan Kerrigan) is the sperm donor; midwife Vicky (Christine Bottomley) is expecting her own first child while in an unstable relationship; Jasmin (Taj Atwal) is having doubts about her impending motherhood and is keeping something from husband Dev (Sacha Dhawan); and lonely  fifteen-year-old Rosie (Hannah Midgley) is largely ignorant of what's going to happen to her.

So, all the familiar Mellor ingredients are here for the first of six episodes that will no doubt see emergencies, births, revelations and seismic shifts of emotion.  The strengths of her writing are in the audience being able to identify with everyday people struggling with familiar frustrations.  It's good enough to rise above trite dialogue and resolution, while never challenging in the way that the current, aforementioned BBC2 drama, or C4's 'Utopia' are.  So, if you're a fan of the back catalogue ('Band of Gold', 'The Practice', 'Playing the Field', 'A Passionate Woman' etc.) then you won't be disappointed, but if not, then this probably won't convert you.  Will we keep watching?  Probably not, but then gossip about trapped wind and swollen ankles, while they may be facts of life, can get a bit wearing.

Lightfields

Remember Marchlands, the ITV chiller set in 3 timeframes?  Well here's Lightfields, the ITV chiller set in 3 timeframes.  It's not a sequel, it's a follow-up, in the sense that 'Lewis' is a follow-up to 'Morse', which means the house is different and so are the characters but the basic setup is the same: someone dies horribly and comes back as a ghost to haunt two later groups of inhabitants.

This one has not-so-innocent teenager Lucy (Antonia Clarke) in 1944 having an affair with Dwight, the only American airman for miles (Neil Jackson).  He's the spookiest thing in it, coaxing women to take walks with him and turning up behind trees and in barns, always alone.  Unfortunately she's thumbing her nose at her new friend Eve, who met him first, and two local lads who fancied their chances.  There may be trouble ahead... which is confirmed when Vivien (Lucy Cohu, freed from her 'Ripper Street' corsets) and daughter Clare (Karla Crome, so good in 'Murder') move into Lightfields in 1975 and hear a girl laughing, see doors opening and - you get the picture.  At the end of the episode she turns up in the bedroom of the 2012 family home of Danny Webb and Sophie Thompson.  We didn't catch their names as the modern segment has had little else to offer in the way of thrills or interest so far.  The old man was around in 1944 (as Pip, Lucy's younger brother), but wistful looks and rolling eyeballs yield little in the way of thrills.

Everything is pretty well signalled.  1944 has cardigans and swing tunes, 1975 has volvos, pigtails and a disco (but no dungarees, a definite improvement on 'Marchlands') and 2012 has, well, let's just say a dreary familiarity.  Will we be watching episodes 2 - 5?  Oh probably.  Suckers for doors opening by unseen hands and cracked dusty mirrors in barns, we are!