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4 days ago
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Squid Game 2 (Netflix)
Doctor Who: Joy to the World (BBC One/Disney+) | iPlayer
Outnumbered (BBC One) | iPlayer
A Ghost Story for Christmas: Woman of Stone (BBC Two) | iPlayer
If you’re feeling overstuffed with turkey or nut roast, or suffering from post-festive comedown, maybe a candy-coloured, South Korean bloodbath will put you right? Regardless of where you stood on Hwang Dong-hyuk’s 2021 first series of horror thriller Squid Game (puerile, overhyped nonsense or dystopian treatise on the moral carnage of capitalism and state control?), it could at least be agreed that Netflix’s most-watched show ever was a global phenomenon.
What hooked people in? The cerise-suited squids (guards who executed contestants who failed tasks); the 456 contestants in identical green tracksuits; the bunk bed-strewn contestant dorm that looked like the team-bonding trip from hell; the huge Perspex pig suspended from the ceiling, filling up with obscene amounts of prize money (total: £28m) every time contestants were killed.
Then there were the quasi-death row twists on childhood games, including Red Light, Green Light (think grandmother’s footsteps, with guns). The iconography – childhood innocence eerily distorted – was spot-on: deliciously unnerving, with a fresh Korean flavour. Less winningly, plotting and characterisation were basic at best. How would this bode for the new series?
Short answer: not so well. The plot for the seven-part Squid Game 2 hinges (spoilers ahead) on the winner from series one, Player 456 (Lee Jung-jae), mired in survivor’s guilt, re-enlisting as a contestant in a bid to destroy the Squid Game. Alongside new characters, familiar faces include the undercover policeman (Wi Ha-joon) and the sinister, Patrick Bateman-esque recruiter (Gong Yoo).
The biggest development is the introduction of a contestant vote (to end the game or continue), which comes across as a nod to Trump, Brexit, culture wars and divisive elections. There are some new games – a carousel; a take on Russian roulette – though not enough of them, and the return of Red Light, Green Light, but this time Player 456 knows what’s coming and can warn other competitors.
There’s the rub: viewers also know what’s coming. With Squid Game 2 (and Squid Game 3 in the pipeline), the conceptual novelty has worn off and you’re left with a more action-packed, mechanically violent thriller (akin to a series such as Money Heist). Squid Game 2 is still nicely made and perfectly watchable, but compared with the first series, strangely ordinary.
Doctor Who Christmas special Joy to the World (BBC One/Disney+) was the latest from reinstated showrunner Russell T Davies, with a script by Steven Moffat (Sherlock). Ncuti Gatwa’s club hottie Time Lord was still dressed as if he’s up for a hard night partying with Andy Warhol and Grace Jones at Studio 54. The inside of the Tardis continues to resemble an abandoned set for 2001: A Space Odyssey. In what appears to have morphed into a revolving door of Whovian female companions, Nicola Coughlan (Derry Girls, Bridgerton) played Joy, whose mother died at Christmas during the pandemic.
Joy and the Doctor met at the Time hotel, where rooms turn into time-travelling portals, with guests journeying to the second world war, the stone age, ancient Rome, Everest base camp and the like, “all of human history now available as mini-breaks”. There was a running joke about how there’s often a locked door in hotel rooms. A thing called a Star Seed was up to no good. And of course the Doctor had to save the day, the world, the universe, etc, etc, etc…
There was a nice last-minute twist I didn’t see coming, and you get the feeling the dynamic, ironic Gatwa is just getting started in the role. My perpetual gripe with Doctor Who is its try-hard, turbo-glossy production values. I really could have done without the deafening, syrupy “emotional” music towards the close, which was like being power hosed with Lyle’s Golden Syrup.
It felt oddly discombobulating watching this year’s Christmas special of Outnumbered (BBC One), Guy Jenkin and Andy Hamilton’s sitcom homage to the everyday wonder of normal family existence, making its first outing in eight years.
Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner – now a couple in real life too – returned as beleaguered but chilled-adjacent parents Pete and Sue. The kids were also back, except they’re not kids any more. They’re twentysomethings in the throes of adulting. Well, kind of. Ben (Daniel Roche) plans to climb the Andes. Jake (Tyger Drew-Honey) is finding parenting a toddler (Pete and Sue’s first grandchild) challenging, and Karen (Ramona Marquez) has evolved into a wonderfully self-absorbed monster.
It wasn’t all annoying parcel deliveries, low-key bickering (“Weird how often people who say ‘No problem’ turn out to be a problem”), bizarre outbursts (“Who’s going to miss a swan? They’re just geese with longer necks and better PR”) and domestic chitchat. There was a crisis the parents needed to discuss, though even the broaching of this was met with: “Are you going to stop paying for our mobile phones?”
Outnumbered almost parodies itself as a simple family sitcom, but it’s sharper than that. It’s also notable how, after all these years, the cast still have natural chemistry. That’s beyond television.
Mark Gatiss should receive a special goth gong in the new year honours list for keeping the ghost story alive in Britain. His latest shivery offering for the annual (BBC Two) was Woman of Stone, an adaptation of Edith Nesbit’s 1893 yarn Man-Size in Marble. What a cracking cast. Celia Imrie hammed up a storm as an infirm, impish Nesbit (“Come and sit on my counterpane”), rasping out her story to a kindly doctor (Mawaan Rizwan, creator of the irrepressible comedy Juice).
The story is about a Victorian couple, writer Laura (Phoebe Horn) and her preposterous chauvinist husband, Jack (Eanna Hardwicke). On moving into their new cottage, they’re told a chilling yarn by their morbid cook (Monica Dolan, freezing her stare like only she can), about marble knight effigies coming to life on Christmas Eve and killing their wives…
In case you have yet to watch it, I’ll leave it there (it wouldn’t do to unleash a 19th-century spoiler). Wreathed in shadows, flickering in candlelight, creeping in at 30 minutes long, Woman of Stone was a dusty, musty, wonderfully vintage storytelling treat.
Star ratings (out of five)
Squid Game 2 ★★
Doctor Who: Joy to the World ★★★
Outnumbered ★★★
A Ghost Story for Christmas: Woman of Stone ★★★★
What else I’m watching
Gavin & Stacey
(BBC One)
Catching up from the 2019 Christmas special, this very last episode is emotionally charged. Heading the now familiar cast, co-creators James Corden and Ruth Jones star as blokey Smithy and the extraordinary Nessa.
Bad Tidings
(Sky Showcase)
It’s comedian Chris McCausland’s year. Having won Strictly Come Dancing with Dianne Buswell, he now stars in this cheerful, unpretentious comedy with Lee Mack as warring neighbours forced to cooperate. Sometimes it’s nice when things are just silly for the sake of it.
The Serial Killer’s Wife
(Channel 5)
First shown on Paramount+, this hyper-tense four-part psychological thriller stars Annabel Scholey as a woman whose husband is suspected of murder, but did he do it?
