The Split: Yet another predictable drama where men ruin everything
THIS won’t be remembered as a vintage year for new British television drama. In the important first season after new year James Norton’s McMafia, the BBC’s great hope, went down like a government auditor in a Russian hedge fund, followed by middling efforts such as Hard Sun and the laugh-a-line Troy.
ITV did little better with the routinely overboard Girlfriends – the most improbable drama of the year in a large field. It now seems to be struggling for a hit.
So now we have The Split (BBC1, Tuesday), which I approached with dread.
The trailers looked so 1990s; by which I mean a shiny office tower inhabited by spiky characters, feeble storylines and themes... if you could find one.
Roll on 20 years and nothing has been learned. What on earth was this drama about?
How men ruin everything? Again. (Just like Girlfriends).
For some writers, Satan is now a married middle-aged man sitting on a sofa with a remote control.
A bit of balance, please. Two of them, Anthony Head and Stephen Mangan, while apparently charming on the outside, were desperately and irreparably useless and borderline malevolent.
Head had deserted his family of three daughters and their mother (the focus of the drama), while Mangan was a drunk and in severe danger of straying between sisters.
And the plot? A comedian divorcing his wife/agent but using their sex life as material.
Ho hum.
Or a multi-millionaire (Stephen Tomkinson) who is having an affair with his wife’s best friend.
And yes, I foresee a narrative where Mangan divorces lead character Nicola Walker’s amazing solicitor.
That is: how does a lawyer deal with her own divorce?
Like you care.
I’d be more intrigued by an estate agent who couldn’t sell his own house.
It was harmless in a Mistresses sort of way but it took itself far too seriously to be enjoyable and lacked the heft of an original situation that said anything.
The Split: Tanya Franks stars a lawyer Sarah Pope
Why? Because we’re not short of lawyers on telly.
Suits, Meghan Markle’s TV training to become a member of the Royal Family, knocks spots off The split.
In short, not all men are frothing-at-the-mouth car crashes.
In legal dramas (successful ones), it’s the cases that make an audience watch.
Think of Rumpole, North Square, Judge John Deed and Silk.
Thank goodness for Netflix, because predictable dramas like The Split are a recruiting sergeant for Netflix and Amazon, otherwise the streaming services wouldn’t be so successful here.