The Catch; Deep Fake Neighbour Wars

“It’s one of those second-tier thrillers that the broadcaster does so well – barrels along, doesn’t tax the brain, will not appear on any Bafta shortlists but is an enjoyable, easy watch with plenty of twists that you may or may not see coming.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“Jason Watkins gives a sweatily convincing portrayal of a man who can’t take much more. He is brilliant at showing us Ed’s twitching jealousy, the loathing he can’t hide for this successful, good-looking guy who wants (as Ed sees it) to take his daughter away from him. All this is enough pressure to blow anyone’s lid off, but the frantic plotting of The Catch threatens to overdo it. So many sources of tension can work well in a novel, but they threaten to overwhelm a compact, four-part telly drama.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Jason Watkins is a fabulous actor, so I kept thinking that there must be a catch with The Catch. So far it feels worryingly like a schlocky potboiler. But surely someone of his calibre wouldn’t sign up for that? The same goes for the brilliant Brenda Fricker, for Aneurin Barnard, Poppy Gilbert, Cathy Belton: it is a great cast. So I am persuaded that there’s going to be a lot more to this four-part thriller than the obvious stuff that is presenting itself at the moment.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“This was all a considerable improvement on last year’s undercooked Channel 5 thriller The Holiday, which was also adapted by Michael Crompton from a novel by TM Logan. With its cuckoo-in-the-nest plot, The Catch was formulaic but elevated by a cast that included Brenda Fricker as Poppy’s grandmother Phyllis. Whether the material deserved such a strong cast remains to be seen, although there was enough intrigue to tempt me to continue watching next week.”
Gerard Gilbert, The i

“Deep Fake Neighbour Wars may be skilled at using AI-generated images to make its impressionists look exactly like Nicki Minaj and Tom Holland, but it’s equally good at replicating the banal faux-shock of this type of reality TV.”
Chitra Ramaswamy, The Guardian

“As an idea, it has potential, but is let down by a crashingly unfunny script. The writers clearly think that the concept is enough, so have declined to write any jokes. The technology is fairly mind-boggling – if you switched to this channel without knowing you were watching deep fakes, you could easily mistake them for the real thing. Just a shame about the content.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“The point of Deep Fake Neighbour Wars is that it’s bad. It is a premise of such stupid simplicity that it has the quality of a B-movie, like Snakes on a Plane or Killer Klowns from Outer Space. It is begging its viewers to post incredulous social media takes; to share clips of scaffolder Ariana Grande shimmying in Southend on TikTok or Snapchat or wherever kids hang out these days. It is intended to incite irritation and elicit one-star reviews. And so, to some extent: job done.”
Nick Hilton, The Independent