​Karen Pirie; Am I Being Unreasonable?; Bloodlands; Strictly Come Dancing

“It’s meaty, well-paced and surefooted. The purposeful Pirie, played by Outlander’s Lauren Lyle is (again, refreshingly) a non-neurotic, inwardly untortured professional, as imperfect as the next gal but not fatally flawed, burdened by a dark personal secret or sporting one marked characteristic instead of a character. The script and Lyle blend determination, confidence and charm in perfect proportions as she navigates her way through the cold case, the politics around it and the obstacles thrown up by time, happenstance and the murderer’s – presumably ongoing – desire not to get caught.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“It felt modern and fresh (well, as fresh as yet another cop show can be),I also liked the dovetailed storytelling, which surprises me as flashbacks are usually my wet blanket turn-off…The drama flicked between time frames, and although young and older versions of the three students looked nothing like each other, as a dramatic device it worked, apart from that terrible drug dancing they did to Pulp’s Common People…this is a very slow burn. Perhaps it will be too slow for some people”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“This double-barrelled story-telling hasn’t been done so well since Unforgotten, with Nicola Walker. But part of the reason Unforgotten was so good is that it followed a single investigation — in one-hour episodes. Karen Pirie is also a single story, but lumping it into a trio of two-hour sections is wearisome. We don’t get the satisfaction of a resolution to a complex mystery. Instead, we spend a whole Sunday evening building to a cliffhanger ending. The solution is simple, I suppose. Karen Pirie is excellent, the best new police serial this year. To enjoy it properly, all we have to do is record each part and watch it over two nights, the way we did with Morse.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“The detective charged with investigating this is DS Karen Pirie, portrayed in an appealing natural performance by Lauren Lyle. It’s quite refreshing to have a lead character in a police drama who is quite junior and doesn’t just stride around being either loud and bolshy or icily efficient in a Jigsaw trouser suit.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph 

“There’s a discipline about the scripting that is curiously absent from too many others of the kind. The writers have understood that they really don’t have to make things too confusing for the jaded viewer slumped in front of a screen. A detective drama should be no more frustrating to watch than a medium-level Sudoku, in my opinion, with a half-dozen suspects as a maximum and no more, no dysfunctional family more than five-strong, and a standard two gratuitous dialogue scenes that confirm what’s going on and why. Karen Pirie hits each benchmark with the resounding thud of an assassinated key witness meeting the hard concrete of an empty car park. It helps us to be bothered enough to make time (90 minutes a go) to watch the next episodes.”
Sean O’Grady, The Independent

“Cooper remains an absurdly brilliant comic performer who is capable of heartbreaking moments of vulnerability, as she showed in This Country. Hizli is an equally fine actor and carries the dramatic scenes particularly well, where Cooper seems less comfortable. And what a gift they have in 13-year-old Rush, who has the comic chops and emotional range of an actor twice his age and the kind of chemistry with Cooper that is an absolute joy to watch. But it does suffer from difficult second album syndrome. It is trying to be funny enough to satisfy the This Country fanbase, while moving sufficiently into thriller land to allow Cooper to distinguish herself in another field; to explore the loneliness of motherhood, a loveless marriage, adulthood and grief; and to provide a thriller narrative. None of it quite coheres. You can applaud the ambition while wishing they had reined themselves in just a little more and made sure the whole was properly fit for purpose – and the showcase Cooper and Hizli certainly deserve.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian 

“The whole set-up of AIBU has been written by Cooper and Hizli, and the script is intricately structured so as to maintain that balance between reality and deception, past and present, lies and truth – and they succeed admirably. Presumably created with themselves in mind, their respective performances are flawless; but Hizli has the tougher task as the deceiver, and she plays Jen in a nuanced, delicately weighted way that teases just the right quantum of evil creepiness out of her character’s outwardly breezy, Mumsnetty niceness. Cooper is more idiotically straightforward as Nic. It’s delightfully done, and makes for moreish viewing.”
Sean O’Grady, The Independent

“Cooper has described the series as “genre-less” and it does resist categorisation. It flips from romance to thriller to horror, sometimes within the same scene. It’s traditional for critics to carp that it doesn’t quite succeed at any of them but that would miss the point of this endlessly surprising series. Just when the show looks like it’s going to be about obsessive female friendship, it whisks the rug away…The schoolgates power-games recall a rural remix of Motherland, while the scripts are packed with knowing pop-culture references and are unafraid of a fart gag. Howls of laughter alternate with gasps of horror. Full of twists, turns and tonal gear-changes, Am I Being Unreasonable? is perhaps the most idiosyncratic home-grown series you’ll see all year.”
Michael Hogan, The Telegraph 

“Am I Being Unreasonable? doesn’t have an overarching narrative, nor does it give each episode – of which there are six – its own identity, as was so brilliantly done in This Country. It makes the reveals and twists feel lacklustre, lowering the stakes at every turn.The show’s saving grace is Cooper herself, whose naturalistic, inherently funny delivery lights up the screen. She’s at her best when Nic goes off on tangents about how many quiches are needed for a memorial service or the childish presents her mother-in-law buys for Ollie. Hizli is a wonderful screen partner for her, the pair bouncing off one another as only women who have an unidentifiable but magical connection can. On a word-by-word basis, the script is fantastic.”
Emily Baker, The i 

“Bloodlands is so ludicrous I’m almost enjoying it. As a comedy. We are supposed to believe now that a detective (DCI Tom Brannick, played by James Nesbitt) can prise a suspect out of a safe house where he is being guarded by police, drive him to a remote spot and shoot him, then dress up in a white bodysuit complete with mouth mask (why?), row a boat out on a lake and dump the body without a soul seeing or hearing a thing. Brannick’s panto-villain expressions and dancing eyebrows are still unintentionally hilarious and the best thing about it, actually. I will admit that there is something ingenious about making a ruthless, greedy serial killer cop the protagonist, a man whose only redeeming feature is his love for his daughter. Even though she wears a woolly hat indoors, which is annoying.” 
Carol Midgley, The Times

“The hand of executive producer Jed Mercurio is evident in all of this: it’s a show that wants you to put pieces of the puzzle together, like Line of Duty, although they’re not in the same league. It takes itself very seriously, which makes it ridiculous, which in turn makes it enjoyable.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph 

“Nesbitt is enjoying himself, switching on a cold-eyed stare that acquires a psycho glaze as his eyes roll up in their sockets. Pompously macho and self-consciously alpha male, he’s great at looking worried but bluffing it out each time he realises he’s potentially given himself away. Bloodlands is schlock, but it’s addictive schlock.” 
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“This was a glittery grab bag of entertainment, as bright as judge Motsi Mabuse’s blue braids. We saw seven different dance styles, while the cross-generational playlist ranged from parent-pleasing classics (Dolly Parton, Abba, Stevie Wonder, Wham!) to teen-friendly contemporary pop (Harry Styles, Anne-Marie, Little Mix)…With this much hoofing potential, however, the 20th series looks set fair.”
Michael Hogan, The Telegraph