chrispowers1976

After New Line's false start in 2007, this had the potential to be an amazing piece of television: Philip Pullman's trilogy of novels is so alive with rich characters, imaginative scenery and a plot so watertight that you'd think that adapting it for the screen would be a mere formality script wise. Yet the BBC produced this instead; a mediocre, lazy three part series that had begun to look dated before it had finished airing. The set design was lazy, sometimes I forgot that what I was watching was supposed to be set in another universe where people's souls were in the form of an animal because the 'daemons' were non existent and the universe resembled twenty first century Britain so much that I I couldn't tell the difference between realities. Some of the casting choices were appalling; Amir Wilson, Ariyon Bakare and Lin-Manuel Miranda were all mis-cast to name but a few: Miranda was annoying, Wilson looked weak and confused and delivered his lines as if he were reading out loud and Bakare's attempts to hide his London accent were laughable. The script was patchy at best; characters that were strong and wise in the novels were turned into cowering simpletons at times, some of the lines were so cliched they sounded like they had been written for Eastenders and towards the end of the third series characters suddenly started telling each other off for no apparent reason, in the typically cliched BBC way that played a large part in ruining the last five years of Doctor Who. Quite why any fans of the books thought that this was good is beyond me, in fact I intend to re-read them soon in an attempt to dim my memories of this farcical series.

This is yet another Disney Star Wars series with absolutely no artistic professionalism involved at all. The title character is portrayed as a blithering imbecile, despite the series being set a decade before Star Wars/A New Hope where he is wise, peaceful and cunning; in order to promote Disney's latest new 'Mary Sue' characters. Most of the support cast turn in wooden performances and the direction is awful. Best avoided by Star Wars fans.

I 'box-set-blitzed' this drama when it first came out and absolutely loved it, then did the same with it's companion piece, Banana. This time around, seven years later, I watched it as intended: one episode of Cucumber, one episode of Banana and found that I enjoyed it even more. Apart from the odd old IPhone model it hasn't dated and still hits hard even if you know what's coming. Davies at this point understood humans completely, (a gift that seems to have faded into 'woke cliché' territory in more recent dramas like Years and Years and It's a Sin). The acting is superb, especially Cyril Nri who gives an outstanding performance. (The one exception is Julie Hesomndhalgh who basically plays her own self righteous, patronising self with her own accent; which is completely different from her on-screen brother's). Vincent Franklin is also excellent, swapping emotional drama for comedy and back again at exactly the right moment. If you haven't seen Cucumber then I'd definitely recommend it.