London Kills
Rating:
A Year To Dave My Life: George McGavin and Melanoma
Rating: 
These days, the only difference between daytime TV and post-watershed drama is the budget.
London Kills (BBC1), the new crime serial running every afternoon this week, featured a gory murder, drug abuse and a graphic attempted suicide, not to mention heavy hints of a same-sex romance — all themes that would once have confirmed it as only suitable after the 9pm watershed.
But the show has none of the sharp production values that mark out prime-time television. It appears to have been shot on one hand-held camcorder.
London Kills (BBC1), the new crime serial running every afternoon this week, featured a gory murder, drug abuse and a graphic attempted suicide, not to mention heavy hints of a same-sex romance — all themes that would once have confirmed it as only suitable after the 9pm watershed
Long sequences feature nothing but wobbly shots of actor’s faces, like out-takes from an amateur film of the office party.
And the setting is dirt cheap. Modern crime drama works best in remote, noirish locations, but the most exotic backdrop that London Kills could offer was a scrubby bit of parkland, ringed off with blue-and-white police tape.
Hero John (Tom Bateman) in Beecham House (ITV) is having an automaton, or mechanical model, made as a gift for the empress. He could just give her any of the actors — they’re all as artificial and stilted as robots.
This show would love to be like Shetland, the haunting police procedural with a mournful detective trying to hold together a small and inexperienced squad of argumentative coppers.
But it just doesn’t have the budget. London Kills is what happens if you try to travel to Shetland on a zone-two Underground rail ticket for seven quid . . . you won’t get further than Hounslow.
Hugo Speer plays DI David Bradford, back on duty for the first time since his wife went missing. His team gossip about it constantly, and the general consensus is that disappearing was the only sensible thing the poor woman could do.
Because Bradford isn’t back up to speed yet, the junior detectives queue up to explain each clue to him. The first murder victim,
