Showing posts with label 2013 The Tunnel. Show all posts

Friday, July 18, 2014

September 9, 2013 - DigitalSpy - must See TV - Quirke , The Tunnel, Atlantis, Dracula

Freddie Highmore as Norman Bates in A&E's 'Bates Motel'

Freddie Highmore as Norman Bates in 'Bates Motel'

A&E's Psycho prequel - picked up by the Universal Channel for UK broadcast - could've been a Hitchcock meets Dawson's Creek disaster, but is actually a solid drama with a pleasingly creepy tone.

Anchored by two solid lead performances from Freddie Highmore (young Norman) and Vera Farmiga (his domineering mother Norma), Bates Motel is definitely one to watch, with a second season already in production.

Starts: Thursday, September 12 at 9pm on the Universal Channel.

10. Quirke

Gabriel Byrne during filming of the BBC Crime thriller Quirke in Dublin

The always-compelling Gabriel Byrne plays the title role in this Irish detective serial - Byrne is Quirke, a somber Dublin pathologist who solves crimes in the 1950s and sports a natty suit-and-hat combo while doing so.

Quirke also features Colin Morgan in his first post-Merlin TV role - the 27-year-old appears in the third and final 90-minute episode as the character Jimmy Minor.

Starts: Autumn on BBC One.

9. Escape Artist

Doctor Who's David Tennant teams withSpooks creator David Wolstencroft in what sounds to us like a winning combo - Digital Spy readers' favorite Time Lord plays barrister Will Burton in this new legal thriller...

Tennant's joined by a fantastic supporting cast - including Toby Kebbell, Sophie Okonedo and Ashley Jensen - for a drama that promises to delve into the "blood and guts" of the legal system.

Starts: Late 2013 on BBC One.

8. The Blacklist

'The Blacklist', starring James Spader

James Spader is at the helm of this highly anticipated new US series, which features him playing a former world's most wanted criminal who mysteriously turns to work with the FBI.

The trailer alone features about 456 twists and if you enjoyed the The Following andHannibal from the last US TV season, this should give you some similar thrills to get your teeth into.

Starts: October on Sky Living.

7. The Tunnel

The Tunnel on Sky

Sky Atlantic has teamed with acclaimed broadcaster CANAL+ to give Scandinavian drama The Bridge an Anglo-French twist, with Stephen Dillane and Clémence Poésy cast as the two leads.

With Merlin star Angel Coulby and Spooksactress Keeley Hawes also on board, the pedigree is high - so let's hope for a new and exciting twist on an established format, rather than a reheated retread of a popular hit.

Starts: Autumn on Sky Atlantic.

6. The Wrong Mans

The Wrong Mans

Smithy and Deano from Gavin & Stacey end up playing Statham and Stallone for the week in a tense action-packed thriller.

OK, that might sound awful, but don't let our terrible analogy put you off. James Corden's ambitious new BBC project manages to be both funny and dramatic and is refreshingly original.

Starts: September on BBC Two.

5. Dracula

'Dracula', starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers

Sexy Jonathan Rhys Myers is joined by sexy Jessica De Gouw and sexy Katie McGrath in this, yup you guessed it, sexy retelling of the Bram Stoker classic,

Jointly released by NBC in the US and Sky Living in the UK, the drama will follow Rhys Myers's Dracula's arrival in London, where he plans to "wreak revenge" and, presumably, suck a bit of blood.

Starts: October on Sky Living.

4. An Adventure in Space and Time

David Bradley as William Hartnell.

Expect fannish thrills and high emotion from this Doctor Who biopic - penned by Mark Gatiss, Adventure tells the story of the BBC sci-fi drama's creation and its first three years under original lead William Hartnell.

Starring David Bradley as Hartnell, this BBC Two drama has been produced to celebrateWho's 50th anniversary in November - one of many treats we can expect as the Doctor's birthday approaches!

Starts: November on BBC Two.

3. Atlantis

'Atlantis' poster

The team behind Merlin haven't wasted long in returning to our screens with a new fantasy drama - Atlantis follows Jason (Jack Donnelly), a young outsider who arrives on the mysterious island of legend.

But not everyone is as pleased to see Jason as his new friends Pythagoras (Robert Emms) and Hercules (Mark Addy) and soon the Greek hero fights himself combating magic and monsters - sounds like solid Saturday night fare to us!

Starts: Autumn on BBC One.

2. Masters of Sex

Michael Sheen as Dr. William Masters and Lizzy Caplan as Virginia Johnson in Masters of Sex

Masters of Sex stars Michael Sheen and Lizzy Caplan and it's a period drama about the sexual revolution. Therefore, it's easy to see why this new Showtime series, based on Thomas Maier's book of the same name, is creating such a buzz in the US.

Sex, betrayal, jealousy, all wrapped up in a classy little package, make this one of the most anticipated new shows of 2013.

Starts: October on Channel 4.

1. Marvel's Agents of SHIELD

Marvel's 'Agents of SHIELD'

Like its big-screen parent The Avengers, Marvel's Agents of SHIELD is a wonderful fusion of the Marvelverse and the Whedonverse - there's no costumed heroes here, but you won't miss them...

Channel 4 have landed the hottest new TV drama to come out of the US this year - a show that's as witty, fun and sharp as it is action-packed. Welcome to Level Seven...

Starts: Friday, September 27 at 8pm on Channel 4.

Saturday, February 1, 2014

December 18, 2013 - DenGeek - The Tunnel Finale - Angel Coulby

The Tunnel finale review

Review James Stansfield 18 Dec 2013 - 22:00

Wonderfully written, acted and filmed, The Tunnel concludes its first series with a complex and powerful finale...

This review contains spoilers.

A wise man once said “Just because you know how something’s going to end, doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it”. Actually it was Ted Mosby on the ‘Monday Night Football’ episode of How I Met Your Mother but it’s a philosophy that can easily have been applied to The Tunnel for those who’d already seen it’s predecessor The Bridge. The French/English take on the Danish/Swedish drama has never strayed too far from the path but it’s been put together so well that it’s been easy for viewers new and familiar to lose themselves in this complex story. The finale was no exception.

If anything though, this episode felt like a train slowing down to pull into its destination after hurtling at breakneck speed down the track. Perhaps the programme makers set themselves just too high a challenge in topping the final act of the previous episode that was so well commanded by Angel Coulby, but this conclusion definitely felt like a slower and brooding climax for the first forty-five minutes.

With his son now in the clutches of The Truth Terrorist/John Sumner/Kieran Ashton/how many names does one man want?, Karl Roebuck was at his wits' end. To say he had nothing to lose isn’t correct but his professional conduct had left the building, while his partner Elise Wassermann tried to wrestle with her own social issues as her work threatened to actually make her feel something for the people involved.

We’ll save talking about the Karl/Elise relationship for a little later as it really played a very important part in the conclusion to The Tunnel, after Ashton sent Karl on a cat and mouse chase to ensure that he saw his son alive once more. Of course it was all just a part of making Karl suffer that little bit longer. Ashton could have simply jumped to his end game but he was determined that Karl should feel the sense of hopeless loss that he had himself.

Around all this was a lot of filling in the blanks and catch-up exposition, just to make sure that everyone was on the same page. This wasn’t a bad idea as The Tunnel has led its audience through a pretty maze-like journey for the last nine weeks, some of which has seemed more relevant than others. I was sure by episode eight when the character of Fabian Vincent was introduced that he was another mild diversion. How wrong I was. A scene which saw Elise rifling through papers and mentioning previous characters seemed designed to remind us who we’d encountered previously, but turned out to be a showcase for the character’s excellent observational skills. Using clues that I’m sure we’d all missed, Elise connected Ashton to Fabian Vincent and tracked down the Peloton operative. This was actually a really great move from The Tunnel, and it wasn’t the only time in this finale where tangents that had seemed frustrating at the time were tied in and as it happened, it was Elise’s time with Fabian Vincent in episode eight that was ultimately crucial to the solving of just where Ashton was holding Adam.

James Frain’s Kieran Ashton may have only turned up in bodily form for the final episodes of The Tunnel but The Truth Terrorist is one of the year’s most memorable, and organised, villains and Frain was an ideal choice to portray him. To call him a villain might be up for debate.The Tunnel was never a show with strictly good guys and bad guys, and the line was never more blurred than with Ashton. His scenes with Jack Lowden’s Adam Roebuck (an excellent turn that was allowed to advance past the sulky teen stage in this finale) were very frank and almost conversational with regards to the acts he’d committed. They left us with no doubt that in Ashton’s mind he clearly saw himself as a force of justice, not destruction. It also left us in no doubt that the man was deeply mad. As Ashton injected Adam with a sedative, it was chilling the way he stroked him with soothing murmurs of “Shh, shhh” as if acting out the role of the father he had never had a chance to become.

As previously mentioned, this episode did feel a little slow and broody as it built towards the face off between Karl and Elise and Ashton. At times it seemed a little puzzling; Laura Roebuck seemed to be showing no adverse effects of almost being blown to pieces a day earlier. When we reached that all important confrontation though, The Tunnel once again did what it does best and delivered a stunningly dramatic scene.

Stephen Dillane hasn’t been short of great scenes in this show but we’d never seen Karl like this before. This should have been the pinnacle of the character and Dillane lived up to that. As Ashton smugly taunted Karl with ideas of his dead son on one shoulder, Elise tried her best to convince Karl that Adam was still alive on the other. The look of horror on Karl’s face was brilliant.

In the end it was the evolution of the partnership between Elise and Karl that was Kieran Ashton’s downfall. Throughout the series we’ve watched this relationship blossom from frustration, reluctance, begrudging respect to something that resembles a friendship. There was often a lot made of the fact that Elise can’t lie, that she saw it as a pointless exercise, even when it might have been in a person’s best interests. Even though we saw her edging ever so slightly in that direction last week when she didn’t correct Karl after he lied to their colleagues, it’s Karl’s relationship with her and knowledge of the kind of person Elise is that stopped Karl from giving in to Ashton and executing him as he desired.

This was a very powerful scene and all three actors were brilliant. Poesy and Dillane brought the chemistry they’d established together to boiling point and it was just excellent. It wasn’t a dissimilar scene to that played out in the conclusion of David Fincher’s Seven, a story whichThe Tunnel actually shared quite a lot of similarities with upon reflection.

The Tunnel’s final scene saw Karl and Elise going their separate ways and seemed like a very definite conclusion.The Bridge has just finished its second series in Scandinavia so there is scope for Karl and Elise to return in the future. It would be good to see Poesy and Dillane as these characters once more and see where their relationship went from here. They’ve both done a great job at building this team and show.

The Tunnel went out on an eventual high with a final fifteen minutes that lit up what had been a slow episode. The series as a whole has been a similar story with moments of exquisite drama built up to most weeks. Wonderfully filmed, lit, written and acted, the only real gripe anyone could really have had was that it meandered a little bit at times, and was too familiar to fans of the original when a markedly different take had been initially promised. On the whole though, The Tunnel was a show well worth watching with an admirable complexity.

Monday, January 27, 2014

December 11, 2013 - DenGeek - The Tunnel Episode 9 Plot - Angel Coulby

The Tunnel episode 9 review

Review James Stansfield 11 Dec 2013 - 22:00

A personal vendetta comes into play in this week's episode of The Tunnel. Here's James' review of episode nine...

This review contains spoilers.

Okay enough’s enough. It’s time to stop messing around with seemingly pointless secondary characters and for The Tunnel to get down to the heart of what this has all really been about – a deeply personal revenge mission. The past is coming back to haunt Detective Karl Roebuck after the revelation that his long-dead colleague Kieran Ashton is alive and kicking, and a decent fit for the profile of the Truth Terrorist. For Karl, it’s a time for going through those old photos and files that people always do in these moments of drama.

For Detective Elise Wassermann, it’s time to start closing the net on Kieran Ashton. Sat in the French police station, facing opposite ways, the show marked out the different directions that Elise and Karl are now looking in with regards to the case. For Karl, this has become so personal that he doesn’t really know what to do with it anymore, and it’d get an awful lot closer to home before this episode was out, while Elise is still focussed, logical and intent on tracking down Kieran Ashton through the exciting world of banking.

While this episode was much more of a Karl-centric offering, Clemence Poesy had some very nice moments with Elise throughout the hour. A trip to a friend/relation of Kieran Ashton’s deceased wife didn’t lead to things getting any better for Karl with the confirmation that Zara Ashton had been extremely unhappy and seeking a new life with him. Karl did at least not come off like a total villain for sleeping with his friend’s wife. It was more of a further assurance of Karl’s weakness in this area but also a reaction to what had clearly been a very unhappy situation. What does seem like it was news to Karl was Zara’s intent to be with him permanently. It was understandable that Karl didn’t want this part of his private life splashed across the investigation, but the most interesting thing here was Elise’s compliance.

Previously when we’ve seen Karl lie to those around the investigation, we’ve seen him receive a quick correction from Elise. When Karl doesn’t tell the whole truth to their colleagues back at the station, Elise remains silent. Clemence Poesy played this quite monumental moment for her character very well. You could see the urge to rat Karl out going on behind the eyes but Elise managed for the first time to keep a lid on it. Later on in the episode when Elise gave Karl an affectionate pat on the arm “because that’s what friends do”, it was a real smile raising moment and another step forward for the character.

Compounding on the Elise stuff, there was a sense this week that The Tunnel has turned from a police procedural show, into something of a destiny drama for its characters. The case has acted like a humanisation for Elise, but for Karl, you strongly suspect that his world is never going to be the same again, whatever happens during next week’s finale. Stephen Dillane was once again excellent in this episode. All the charm that Karl exhibited during the first half of this series has been replaced by an air of desperation. He is running because if he stops, he’s probably done for.

The moment when Karl realised that his wife and children were accompanying a psychotic but highly intelligent mad man on a day out was terrific. You could literally feel Karl’s world falling apart.

And what a mad man The Tunnel has delivered us. Thanks to Elise’s banking theories, we soon learned that Kieran Ashton was John Sumner i.e. the man who has been Karl’s wife Laura’s shoulder to cry on in recent times. In a very tense sequence which made good use of The Killing’s stock trademark of going down into torch lit basements, Karl and Elise discovered that Sumner was the Truth Terrorist. Those of us who’d seen The Bridge knew Sumner’s true identity from the moment he drove into Laura’s car a few episode’s back but James Frain has portrayed this character with such skill that he’s been a much more enthralling villain to watch than his Scandinavian original.

Episode nine was the time we learnt a great deal about Sumner/Ashton. His ticking off of persuasive sentences while ensnaring Laura into a trip to the zoo over the phone was chilling. It was methodical, it was organised. It was very TT. When he arrives at the Roebuck residence and Adam let him in it was like inviting a vampire into the house. Throughout the episode, the show painted us a picture of the unhappiness of Kieran Ashton. The man had his wife and child snatched from him with no form of justice dealt out. Imagine what that must do to a person, and one as highly intelligent as Ashton.

As loathsome as some of the things Ashton has done, and did in this episode, he is a character that we can sympathise with. It was hard not to feel sorry for him when Karl happened upon the child’s bowls and plates, carefully wrapped in plastic down in the basement, or feel that his recounting of the loss of his son to Laura wasn’t 100% real. James Frain has done a tremendous job with the character. He looks so normal that you wouldn’t notice him if you walked past him on the street, but that has only made him all the more deadly, as Laura found out when he lured her into standing on a pressure trigger for a bomb.

Such is Sumner’s lack of threat that Laura allowed him to guide her, hands over eyes into this trap in what was a heart thumping scene. We really weren’t sure what horror was going to face Laura when those hands were removed. This was actually a much more dramatic version of the same scene in The Bridge where a live grenade was placed in the character’s hand by her new-found friend. As good as Dillane and Frain were in this episode, both may have been outshone by Angel Coulby. Her ordeal with not knowing exactly what would happen when she stepped off the trigger was an amazingly effective piece of television and easily in the top three scenes The Tunnel has delivered.

And for all her suffering, Laura was only the decoy as Elise worked out that Ashton’s real target would be Karl’s son Adam. We’d got a sense of this already with Sumner’s line “Good luck Laura, you don’t deserve this” as he left, alerting the Police to her location. Laura was a means to an end, a way to get to Karl, to make him suffer but not so much that he’d be finished off before what was coming next. This was a really nice swerve and it really begs the question as to just how horrendous can Sumner make things for Karl in the concluding chapter next week?

After weeks of red herrings and social lessons, The Tunnelhas revealed itself to be the matter of a very personal vendetta, and one which by all accounts isn’t going to have a happy ending...

Read James' review of the previous episode, here.

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