The Sunday Times - UK (2021-12-19)

TELEVISION

of everyone’s worries, when

even the ship’s doctor, played

by a reedy Jack O’Connell, was

off his head on junk. Stephen

Graham, looking like the flying

dog out of The Neverending

Story as the ship’s captain, felt

unlikely to solve the mystery

— he was no match for the

chief suspect, an unhinged

master harpooner played by

Colin Farrell. What a cast.

5

Mare of Easttown

(Sky Atlantic)

If you had to pick out

the star turn of this

box set, I’d say Kate Winslet’s

“bulgy bits”. Out they

popped, halfway through one

of the early episodes, during

a mumsy sex scene with a

visiting novelist played by

Guy Pearce. As Mare, Winslet

seemed thrilled to be playing

a no-nonsense, slightly

chunky police battleaxe,

investigating a gruesome

murder in a rain-soaked,

forgotten corner of

Philadelphia, complete

with finely observed local

accent. It was one of those

shows so rural and desolate

that even the constant rain

should have got its own

Emmy nomination.

who dreamt up a whole

new fake illness called

“breakthrough pain” to

promote massive sales of their

opiate. I particularly enjoyed

the zombie scenes outside

rural pain clinics where

addicts would prostitute

themselves for pills. The

secret star of the show was

Kaitlyn Dever, who’s every

bit as good as a young Jodie

Foster as a teenage lesbian in

the grip of the drug.

4

The North Water

(BBC2)

At first this show felt

bleak: it is set among

monosyllabic Victorian

whalers in 1859 in Hull. Not a

scene went past without some

rape or violent murder; dogs

lay dead in the street. But the

sheer, damp ghoulishness of

the storyline drew you in: how

did men survive for so long on

these dreadful missions,

especially when everyone

else on the boat was either

a drug addict or a whoring

psychopath? The murder of

the cabin boy seemed the least

CAMILLA’S BOX SET

CRACKERS

W

eeks of police

procedurals,

days of gay

drama, many,

many hours

of Jeremy

Clarkson discussing sheep’s

rectums — that was telly in

2021. I have put together my
      top ten list, a collection of the
      cream of the box sets, things
      I came back to again and
      again.
      This way, you won’t need
      to watch some convulsing,
      badly written, Dr Who-
      themed, sub-Strictly
      rhinestone mush. Why sink
      to Christmas specials when
      there has been so much other
      good stuff out this year?
      Impeachment is ten whole
      hours — smash it on at the
      right moment and you could
      miss every single one of your
      least favourite relatives.
      Then there are the hours
      of Selling Sunset where
      Christine Quinn describes
      the recent arrival of her
      baby as: “BOOSH — through
      my vagina” like a “Cirque
      du Soleil performance
      water balloon”. Or why not
      finally catch up on The White
      Lotus, the fourth episode
      of which is the best bit of
      television I’ve seen this year.
      What was Armond doing with
      his tongue?

farming is hard, the people

are harder, the sheep are

usually doomed, and no

matter how big your tractor

— and Clarkson’s is big, like

a bouncy castle — you still

won’t be able to understand

what the dry-stone waller

Gerald is saying. All narrated,

of course, by the deadpanner-

in-chief. “Amazon has said

it wants diversity,” Clarkson

says at a farming auction,

“and we’re doing well here,

because if you look, there

is every different type of white

60-year-old man here.”

Brilliant stuff.

3

Dopesick (Disney+)

Michael Keaton stars

as a fleabitten local

doctor, targeted by

Will Poulter’s grinning drugs

rep in this masterly eight-part

autopsy of the OxyContin

crisis in America. Part of the

satisfaction is watching the

Sacklers, the greedy family

who manufactured the drug,

portrayed as a bunch of pasty,

hobbled, grasping dementors

1

The

White

Lotus

(Sky

Atlantic)

Whenever I

think of great

comedy drama,

I think of this

year’s best show,

The White Lotus.

Why can’t every

show be like this?

Each character, each

scene, each acidic aside

pitched and crafted to ringing

perfection, building to a

horrific final scene in a hotel

suite. In Shane, we had the

ultimate antihero: a sneering,

spoilt Wasp just about as ugly

as an attractive person can

get. Determined to get his

pound of flesh from oily

manager Armond at the

Hawaiian hotel where the

show is set, he drives him to

ever wilder lapses of sobriety,

until Armond finds himself

doing something unspeakable

in honeymooning Shane’s

suitcase. How can one show

have two whole iconic bum

scenes?

2

Clarkson’s Farm

(Amazon)

Jeremy Clarkson’s

tractor odyssey was

the unexpected hit of the

summer. Something about

the gangly, confused figure

of Clarkson picking his way

through obliterated fields on

his Cotswolds estate warmed

our collective cockles. If we

learnt anything it is that

The less said about 2021, the

better. But it was a vintage year

for television. Clarkson’s

tractor, Kate Winslet’s

bulgy bits — time to curl

up on the sofa and binge

CAMILLA

LONG

36 19 December 2021