Do we need Bookish, yet another cosy crime?

Yahoo

9 hours ago

A silhouette on flocked wallpaper. A cute transistor radio playing light jazz. A woman is dozing, slipping down the settee – no, wait – she's being dragged on to the floor, the seams of her nylons disappearing into the shadows. Sedation, abduction and murder, quite possibly, have never looked or sounded more tasteful.
In our world of constant, instantly accessible horror, TV schedulers are turning more than ever to – excuse me while I gag – cosy crime . I get it. TV viewers are human. We crave shocks that activate our fight-or-flight instincts, our primitive selves. It's simply that gentler versions are nicer when the news cycle is all disaster, fascism and genocide.
On UKTV's cosy crime network (and available to subscribers of Now TV ), Bookish presents itself more poshly than Midsomer Murders, Death in Paradise and the recent BBC Sunday night hit Death Valley. It is set in a strangely glossy post war London, where Mark Gatiss plays the irritatingly named Gabriel Book, who runs an antiquarian bookshop. Polly Walker plays his wife, Trottie, a shoulder-padded, vintage-clad dream who runs the wallpaper shop next door. Outside work, they help police solve crimes, although it's not clear why. We also slowly discover that their marriage is shrouded in mystery for other reasons.
The first episode is slow. We're guided through it s world by newcomer Jack (Connor Finch) , a flat-cap-wearing mini Eddie Redmayne with eyes like sapphire marbles. He gets a job at the shop, even though he struggles to locate it (not because he's illiterate: he finds the apostrophe in the store's name, Book's Books, understandably challenging). He's then brought along to a crime scene that reveals itself as a previously undiscovered plague pit.
As a police officer railed at the Books' arrival at the scene, questioning who Jack was, while another officer encouraged the amateurs' deductions, my TV recall siren went off. A very similar setup occurs in the first episode of the BBC 's Sherlock, co-written by Gatiss . Why change a winning formula?
We're then whisked along to a suicide that might be a murder. Mentions of the war's effects on the city add an intriguing texture to the plot. But what makes cosy crime really zing is the characters who lead it. In the first few episodes, Gabriel Book's camp pedantry clearly aims towards David Suchet's reading of Poirot in the classic ITV series that ran for 24 years. His bon mots – 'Loose lips drop slips' – feel heavy-handed, however. Trottie's sexy matriarch is a much more intriguing figure, and even better is part-time bookseller Nora (Buket Kömür) . All quickfire wit, she makes the screen shimmer every time she appears.
Bookish presents itself more poshly than Midsomer Murders, Death in Paradise and the Sunday night hit Death Valley
Jump forward to the present day, and more than 5,000 miles west , to the Yosemite National Park , where – surprise! – there's another mysterious death to investigate. Untamed is Netflix's latest brooding, US-set drama, although Australian and New Zealand actors lead it. Eric Bana, 22 years on from playing the Hulk, is 56 and in his moody, silver- fox era. He plays surly national parks special agent Kyle Turner, a man at his happiest when crossing the wilderness on a horse. Sam Neill, clearly in his kindly grandad era, plays Paul Souter, his boss.
Written by Mark L Smith ( screenwriter of The Revenant and Twisters ) and Elle Smith, this is the kind of show made for huge, wall-mounted screens. Craggy landscapes loom and ache, while episode one's opening climbing scene is not for the acrophobic. Turner suddenly has a young woman's death on his hands and he's given a rookie agent, Naya Vasquez (played by the sparky Lily Santiago) , to work with. Yes, there are clich es here, but Santiago brings a welcome levity to the role.
There are also some bold visual tricks. A twist late in the opener is nicely done, as are jump cuts between Turner's explorations and the victim's last moments. Is he imagining them or is the park revealing its own memories? If the series continues to plough these deeper, weirder furrows, it may work.
Mix Tape is a summer romance set in Sheffield and Sydney. It follows fortysomething music journalist Daniel O'Toole (Jim Sturgess) , who's reminded of the first love of his life, Alison Connor (Teresa Palmer) , after his best friend finds out about her success as a novelist. Here's a generation X-er in mid life, still writing about arts and culture, trying to defend their life choices. Ouch.
Scenes slip and slide easily between the present and the past as we learn about each character. Alison's complex backstory unfolds gradually. At one point in Australia, she chats worriedly to her literary agent on a park bench, watching kids play football. A whistle blows, and she's a teen back in school watching a young Daniel (a pitch-perfect Rory Walton-Smith) swearing as he misses a goal. Florence Hunt, playing the young Alison, has the crackle and glow of a star in the making.
In the post-Normal People era of more explicit romantic dramas, Mix Tape feels old-fashioned, sweet and slightly cloying – like a striped bag of lemon sherbets. Nevertheless, I loved the close ups of ballpoints scrawling on inlay cards and bedroom floors strewn with C90s (under-35s, ask your parents).
Despite clunky dialogue, improbable plot points (surely we all befriended our teenage exes on Facebook nearly 20 years ago?) and too many shots of people gazing into the distance, there are some nice subtle details. The links between his situation and his parents' relationship emerge slowly. And Alison's husband marks himself out as definitely not her indie boy by singing Mental As Anything's 1985 cringe-fest Live It Up.
Jude Rogers's watch list
Human (BBC Two)
This ambitious new BBC/PBS co-production, hosted by the engaging British palaeoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi (below) , takes us 'behind the curtain of evolution', stuffing us full with cutting-edge science.
Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters (ITVX)
It sounds like a fevered Alan Partridge programme pitch, with a title that implies the toothy fish should be more afraid of the stars. But this bizarre show comes alive thanks to endearing contestants such as Lucy Punch (Amandaland) and Lenny Henry .
The Great British Sewing Bee
(BBC One)
Sara Pascoe returns from maternity leave (another task, she says, that involves 'labour, love and careful stitching') to host the 11th series of TV's warmest show, cosying up to sustainable fashion guru Patrick Grant and designer Esme Young.
Photographs by Nicolas Velter; Netflix