After the Flood; The Night Manager; Gladiators

“While the police corruption angle carries inevitable echoes of Line of Duty, the first series, thanks to the Yorkshire setting and Rundle’s participation, has been described as “Happy Valley-lite”. But this rather dismissive comparison with Sally Wainwright’s BBC drama is unfair, and After the Flood, with its eco-concerns, is very much its own beast. And while Jo is no Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire’s inimitable character in Happy Valley), neither is she meant to be. Mackie, however, is shaping up to be a villain every bit as skin-crawling as James Norton’s Tommy Lee Royce.”
Gerard Gilbert, The i

“After the Flood is still beyond the average crime saga where the discovery of a corpse stirs up buried secrets in a town with sad inhabitants and awful weather, but maintaining a premium genre piece is a delicate business. Indulge those tropes too much and they will pull you back down. Season two retreads similar ground rather than moving its formula on: its subplots are reactions to the darkest surprises of the first run and are less intriguing than the original revelations, while the murder case – which sees Jo working with a friendly, inherently trustworthy new partner, Sam (Jill Halfpenny) – replaces season one’s death in the flood that wasn’t actually a drowning with a body full of shotgun pellets that isn’t actually a shooting. It’s the same again, only less so. Jo is in danger of pootling from clue to clue and from suspect to suspect like any other TV cop.”
Jack Seale, The Guardian

“The episode was packed with action that wouldn’t have been out of place in a Bond adventure. We knew the morally upstanding prosecutor wouldn’t last the episode, but it was still a good set piece. Fans of Tom Hiddleston will have been delighted to see him in action hero mode, pelting through the streets then giving chase on a motorbike. As Roxana Bolaños, Camila Morrone smoulders as well as any Bond girl but she isn’t just here for decorative purposes – Bolaños is the one decent female character in the entire drama.”
Anita Singh, Telegraph

That fruity, arrogant drawl, dripping with sadism and self–loathing, is electrifying. But the return of Richard Roper highlights just what The Night Manager has been missing. Arms dealer Roper, played with a pulsating aura of evil by Hugh Laurie, reappeared at the climax of last week’s episode, after we last saw him in a Syrian morgue with what looked like a bullet–hole in his head. Although Laurie has been granted executive producer status on the show, I feared his character might be confined to cameo appearances. But now he’s back, he’s dominating the story, his malign and intimidating presence palpable even when he is not on screen.
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“The cliffhanger was good, Teddy sending through the photo of the “Hong Kong investor” and Roper seeing to his horror that it was Pine. Hilarious that the photo was sent by fax for added dramatic effect, the “gradual reveal” of his face as it chugged out of the machine, when Teddy could have just pinged the photo on his phone. But never mind. At least the show has woken up and started getting back to form. About time.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“Gladiators is that rare thing: a wholesome TV show that everyone can enjoy, from toddlers upwards. There’s some good-natured trash talk, but really the message is to work hard, do your best and never give up. There are heroes and villains. I took my children to the Gladiators live show at Wembley Arena just before Christmas (and highly recommend it to you if they bring it back this year) and can report that Nitro and Dynamite, the smiliest of the Gladiators, were the crowd favourites. But the undisputed star of the show is Legend, AKA Matt Morsia, an absolute master when it comes to delivering his lines as a boo-hiss baddie. If you caught the Celebrity Apprentice programmes during Christmas, you’ll know that he was the best thing in that too.”
Anita Singh, BBC1