TV Critics: Prisoners' Wives; Killers Behind Bars; Horizon; Born to Be Different

“An authentic and involving picture of what it’s like for the family left behind when husband/dad goes to prison this is not. If that’s what you’re after, I suggest you revisit Michael Winterbottom’s beautiful and haunting Everyday. This is mid-market fun. And it is fun, in the same kind of way as Footballers’ Wives, though with less comedy.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“Having husbands in jail turns out to be a very flexible basis for a drama series. Good actresses get a relatively rare chance to take the lion’s share of the lines and you can mix in your long-term prisoners (narrative continuity) with new arrivals (narrative refreshment)… It’s popular, mainstream drama at its best.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“It’s a variety of Velcro-vision drama that’s unlikely to win awards for depth, originality or soul-searing insight, yet brush past while it’s on and it can be maddeningly difficult to tear yourself away… But if there’s one failing Prisoners’ Wives cannot really be accused of, it is predictability. No matter how well-trodden its characters’ paths may seem to be, there’s usually a nasty shock awaiting them further down the line.”
Gerard O’Donovan, The Telegraph

“In its second run, Prisoners’ Wives has inexplicably been sentenced to just four episodes. What are they thinking of? With Nicola Walker as a cop and Anne Reid, playing against type as a gangster mobstress, joining Polly Walker as Fran and Pippa Haywood as Harriet, its cast boasts four of the most interesting, and most interesting-looking, actresses working in television today.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“In TV drama, especially in a second run of a TV drama, we want something more than the familiar reality. That’s why respectable Kim and Mick’s story has real bite… Unlike the other stories there’s a real, engaging element of what happens next, apart from doors banging and porridge for breakfast.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

“Fascinating and chilling… [But] the programme is also quite annoying. There are graphics everywhere, text boxes on the screen, moving around the screen in fact. There are special sound effects, angles keep changing, a skull is given an outline in white. Why? I think it’s because television has become frightened simply to have someone talking on the screen.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“In this week’s episode Wilson examined the profile of former nighclub bouncer and wheel-clamper Levi Bellfield, sentenced between 2008 and 2011 for three murders and one attempted murder… I’d have like to know what in his make-up and past might have turned Bellfield into such an aberrant, abhorrent human being.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

“Horizon’s narration was at times infuriatingly fudgy about the precise nature of the mechanisms involved. But I suspect we’re not meant to worry about actually understanding the mechanisms involved, only on taking in the consumer advice, which involved breaking your routines and exposing yourself to unexpected experiences.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“Take last night’s Horizon with a pinch of salt. Brain science is so young it still needs its nappy changing.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“This is a series that packs an enormous punch of humanity into an hour and generally shows our health and welfare services in a stark but fair light – revealing the huge effort that goes into providing support. Far from being voyeuristic, exploitative, miserabilist or even campaigning in tone, realism is the one and only note.”
Gerard O’Donovan, The Telegraph