The Last Enemy
BBC1, 9pm
Lewis
ITV1, 9pm
Slowly but surely, the plot thickened ever closer to congealing in The Last Enemy's second daud. Our hero, bumbling maths nerd Stephen Ezard, tottered barefoot around Westminster's corridors of power, still unaware that his seemingly assassinated brother, Michael, isn't actually dead at all but is living under an obviously assumed fake beard somewhere else (possibly inside a marine freight-container alongside assorted illegal immigrants from the Afghan-Pakistan border).
This means Stephen is seeking to pursue a torrid affair with a woman who is his sister-in-law, and not his brother's widow, something that might cause seating problems at future Ezard family Christmas dinners.
Intriguingly, we still don't know exactly who failed to assassinate Michael, but we sort of know why (Michael's one of these troublesome idealistic sorts, forever poking their noses into high-level germ-warfare cover-ups and promising to blow the whistle on the whole shebang). Annoyingly, we're equally unsure how Stephen's governmental champion, sassy blonde hottie Eleanor Brooke, ever got a job as a cabinet minister.
At long last, however, we did hear Robert Carlyle speak. His character, maverick spy David Russell, was revealed as a fluent growler of hardman-by-numbers Glaswegian, mixing ominous quips with threats a bit too vague to be scary. "She played you like a fish!" he snarled at one point, a badly phrased behavioural summary that served only to draw attention to its own clumsiness.
Russell did have one good joke, though. "You spent the night of yer brother's funeral bangin' his wife?
That's guid," he rasped, relaxing into a guttural peal of mad laughter, before wondering: "Fond of him, were ye?"
His opening statement had been disappointing, though, lacking genuine menace ("Some people claim they can smell it - electricity"). Russell was talking about the electrified fence round his inexplicable high-tech cyber-hideaway inside a derelict building. Things picked up, mind, when he terrorised information out of Stephen by threatening to frazzle his chops against the lethal fence's 240v chain-links. This came just after he'd set up a joke - "How many microbiologists does it take tae change a lightbulb?" - that lacked a punchline ("Just one, but you better ask quick, they're droppin' like flies").
What Russell meant was that 16 microbiologists have copped it so far in The Last Enemy. Their sudden deaths are part of yon germ-warfare cover-up thing. Which is somehow linked to the government's evil cyber-surveillance system. Plus it's got something to do with the Afghan-Pakistan border.
What, I couldn't say. And I'm not sure I'll keep watching The Last Enemy to find out, despite bony-faced Benedict Cumberbatch being marvellously scared-looking as Stephen Ezard.
In contrast, Lewis is cosily brain-numbing, thanks to its undynamic central duo. As DCI Lewis, Kevin Whately evokes a sleepy, irritated old tortoise startled out of hibernation two months too early. Languid and laconic, the foppish Laurence Fox plays DS Hathaway as a Cavalier officer given a modern skinhead haircut. Instead of battling the Roundheads, Hathaway probed a lethal spat between Oxford academics and local proles. As ever, gown proved more murderous than town.
A sub-plot involving the poet Shelley hobbled by. Robert Carlyle could co-opt the old Romantic icon into Glasgow rhyming slang. I swear I can hear him now ("Man, that Lewis wis a pure pile of Percy Bysshe").
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article