6 May '11

“It was, by turns, perplexing, frightening and rather good. I was gripped, throughout, by the conviction that I didn’t understand what was going on (not the most useful quality in a television reviewer). By the end, though, everything had slotted into place without my really noticing it. No big ta-dah moment. No sudden gasp of realisation. Clever, that.”
Alice-Azania Jarvis, The Independent

“In this opening episode everybody – viewers included – had altogether too much stuff to deal with. “Is he the guy?” I asked my partner. “You know, from earlier?” She looked blank. Happily, nobody else knew what was going on either. In one especially virtuosic piece of writing, Blick cut between the nascent police investigation and Eccleston’s crew struggling to work out who killed their man and why. Nobody had a clue. Everybody’s in the dark, making Blick’s colour-drained palette apposite.”
Stuart Jeffries, The Guardian

“It contains some of the most clenched and knowing line readings that I have ever seen on TV. A script pitted with aphorisms that don’t quite come off perhaps gives the players few options.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“It boasts a marvellous cast all of who are struggling hard to bring some sense of a beating heart to this static, stagey drama.”
Matt Baylis, The Express

“Seriously. Can you imagine winning the lottery? It’s one of those ideas that everyone toys with. What would you buy? Would you quit your job? What would it mean in the long term? (A flat, don’t know, relocating the weekly shop to Waitrose). What do you even do when you twig? Run down the high street, screaming? The answer, it seems, is ring up the Camelot call centre.”
Alice-Azania Jarvis, The Independent

“If one thing unites most of the people interviewed here it’s a sense of confusion, something that kicks in the minute they realise they’ve come up trumps.”
Matt Baylis, The Express

“There’s nothing new about what Michael Mosley’s doing with Inside the Human Body. We all know that it’s the Greatest Miracle on Earth. We all know about the sperm and the egg and the Wonderful Story of Life. The thing is, he just does it so well.”
Alice-Azania Jarvis, The Independent

“As before it’s less laugh-out-loud, more try-not-to-vomit amusing. Which, of course, holds a certain charm.”
Alice-Azania Jarvis, The Independent

“It’s comedy horror for the Ocado demographic, as scary as finding your delivery man has broken the bottle of balsamic vinegar en route, a gross-out as entertaining as a commodified trick-or-treat soiree in the suburbs.”
Stuart Jeffries, The Guardian

“It somehow connects to real life in the way that The Shadow Line has yet to. Its newest character is an obsessive librarian who tracks down overdue books to their borrowers’ homes.”
Andrew Billen, The Times