In this week’s Channel Hopper column, Paul Bradley reviews five new releases: Spider-Noir, Dermot O’Leary’s Taste of Ireland, RTÉ’s D-Day: 100 Days for Freedom, the BBC’s Have I Got News for You and The Witness, streaming on Netflix.
Spider-Noir, Amazon Prime
Oh goody: another superhero series has just landed on Amazon. I mean, it’s a different, less frantic kind of superhero series, but just seeing yet another variation arriving brings all the excitement of, well, a damp cape. Or should I say, a damp web, since this is a cousin of the Spider-Man stories; though, to be clear, Peter Parker is not here, so thankfully there is less constant “humorous” wittering.
But a quick look at its ingredients suggests it deserves a chance. It’s a clever enough concept: Nicolas Cage plays Ben Reilly, a former spider-powered vigilante who’s hung up his mask following a personal tragedy and now shuffles through a noirish, Depression-era New York as a glum gumshoe. Yes: imagine Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade, a rum old cynic with secret webby powers he’d rather not use. To make the link even clearer, there are sassy secretaries and cigarette smoke, and it’s shot in black and white (there’s also a colour version if you prefer…though that would seem to be missing the point a little).
Cage, of all people, is actually well-cast here: his sometimes manic persona (which can be jarring in conventional roles) blends well with the stylised, hard-boiled world. For some balance, Brendan Gleeson is quietly menacing as crime boss Silvermane, and the plot (conspiracies, hidden abilities, shady dames) rattles along with energy and some style. It’s actually quite entertaining, as long as you’re not looking for profundity, or better CGI. It’s a small pity that we’re all so fed up with superheroes by now, since it’s more deserving of an audience than many another show: but it has to combat not only Silvermane and his allies, but our own initial “this again?” reactions.
Dermot O’Leary’s Taste Of Ireland, UTV, Saturday, 12.15pm
Speaking of which, there will be some “come again” moments too, at least for people in this part of the world: there’s a character with the surname Donegal, which is inevitably given the American pronunciation Dawnigle…
At least Dermot O’Leary has no trouble pronouncing the county’s name. Which is just as well, since he’s currently visiting it as part of his Taste Of Ireland series, in which he visits a few of the area’s notable sights, but spends more time trying out the food of local producers and chefs. In the first of three episodes he is devoting to Donegal, he began at Malin Head, tasted the honey at Donagh Bees, and took some foraged mushrooms to The Lemon Tree where chef Chris Molloy showed him to make pasta. He rounded off his day by squinting into the light from the Grianán of Aileach.
That is, by anyone’s lights, a fine day out and about, and it’s not difficult to believe O’Leary when he says he’s loving the old place. There’s more to the man than we knew from his years in the tabloid tinsel of The X Factor, and in person, in conversation with the people here, he’s a more down-to-earth character than that old persona. Still, honest as it seemed, the odd overly dramatic comment, and the tendency to hug everyone do feel a wee bit showbizzy in a show set around here. It’s an unremarkable show, really – no great revelations, no real depth – but it’s well-meant, and it’s nice to see that he’s spending so much time in the county.
D-Day: 100 Days For Freedom, RTE2, Saturday, 6pm
RTE2 marked D-Day this year with D-Day: 100 Days For Freedom, a 2-part documentary which uses modern AI and colourisation techniques on old footage to help bring the whole thing to life. It’s partially successful: certainly colourisation has improved a lot in the last decade, although the AI cleanup has drained some of the gritty life out of it. It’s the same in terms of content: a good enough overview, but slightly bland, like something produced to fill out some streaming schedules rather than with anything new to say. Mind you, someone has done a good job with the maps used, and if it seems too busy to take it all in, well, that was the nature of the operation; this still works well enough as a routine primer for anyone wondering if they should explore further.
HIGNFY, BBC1, Friday, 9pm
Head-scratcher of the week must surely be why certain politicians, without any new things to sell or suggest, would appear on Have I Got News For You. Surely Michael Gove, for example, must have known what was in store for him before he appeared on last week’s final episode; at the very least, he must remember what it was like for him when he appeared on it before. You’d think. I suppose you could say he was brave, and took the abuse in sturdy fashion, but it was hard not to sense a strange oily pride even in some of the very things for which Ian Hislop rounded on him.
Certainly the atmosphere was as chilly as I’ve seen it: not just with Hislop (“I mean there are cockroaches I know who are in awe of your ability”), or with Paul Merton who seemed displeased just to be seated beside him, but even with the prickly studio audience. Gove seemed to try to turn it into a pantomime boohiss bit of fun, but it felt far from that. Why did he show up when he’s not running for election, he’s not selling a book, and he had nothing to add about current situations? I don’t know. Maybe they’ll ask him next time he inevitably does.
The Witness, Netflix
Right. From next week we’ll be swamped by football, so we’ll throw one more new show in this week. Netflix’s The Witness is a true-crime drama that does two slightly unusual things: it tells a story many of us are familiar with on this side of the Atlantic, the 1992 rape and murder of Rachel Nickell in front of her 2-year-old son Alex (the only witness of the title); and it adds a focus on the long-term impact of that crime on Alex and his father André, while of course including the famously botched police investigation and the often abhorrent behaviour of the tabloid press at the time.
That focus on the father and son relationship (Jahsaiah Williams and Max Fincham play Alex at different ages, while Jordan Bolger plays André) yields some quiet, believable moments; small details (the always-packed bag by the door, Alex’s angry adolescence) give the show some strength. But as a drama it often feels oddly clinical, inclined, in its broader moments, to hammer us with fact and message, drifting towards “dramatic reconstruction” territory, which can flatten the impact. Certainly the real story is terrible enough (and remembered clearly enough) that it can’t help but have some interest; but as a drama, despite some good performances and affecting scenes, it leaves you feeling more informed than involved.