![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.spiffingwebsites.com\/douglas-watkinson\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/53\/2022\/08\/322c77_a2641d8ff8fc4b45926a7fada44d1560mv2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just as I was starting to believe the Brits could no longer make decent TV drama (with the exception of Black Mirror) and that we\u2019d handed the baton to Europe and America, along come two series to stand that on its head. The first is Jimmy McGovern\u2019s \u2018Broken\u2019 – so much going on in it without ever smashing you over the head to make sure you\u2019re still watching. No need because Sean Bean as a catholic priest with a past, living and working in a real world of poverty and desperation, is one of those actors who can make you believe every word he says. And McGovern\u2019s a writer who never picks a done-to-death subject and makes you dig for what\u2019s underneath the surface. Plenty, I\u2019d say and not a clich\u00e9 in sight. Father Michael\u2019s shown us twice that beneath the calm, controlled exterior there\u2019s a man who can boil over. I want to be there when he does.<\/p>\n
Counter to \u2018Broken\u2019 is a Canadian drama series called \u2018Cardinal\u2019. It is truly unwatchable. It\u2019s a cop drama that contains every clich\u00e9 to have ever appeared in a police drama – lone hero, maverick being investigated, on the edge and about to fall off, widower – I\u2019m not sure if he\u2019s a boozer but I\u2019d bet money on it. Plus the actor playing the title role is appalling. He not only whispers (for which I\u2019ve already seen criticisms of the mythical \u2018sound man\u2019 being responsible) but he whispers fast, so fast that the subtitles are cut down. Believe anything he says? Why should I? The whispering suggests he doesn\u2019t want the crap he\u2019s saying to be heard and the speed tells me he wants to get it over and done with as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Just as I was starting to believe the Brits could no longer make decent TV drama (with the exception of Black Mirror) and that we\u2019d handed the baton to Europe and America, along come two series to stand that on its head. The first is Jimmy McGovern\u2019s \u2018Broken\u2019 – so much going on in it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":3131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiffingwebsites.com\/douglaswatkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiffingwebsites.com\/douglaswatkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiffingwebsites.com\/douglaswatkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiffingwebsites.com\/douglaswatkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiffingwebsites.com\/douglaswatkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spiffingwebsites.com\/douglaswatkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiffingwebsites.com\/douglaswatkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiffingwebsites.com\/douglaswatkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiffingwebsites.com\/douglaswatkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiffingwebsites.com\/douglaswatkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}