Towards Zero and White Lotus
These TV dramatisations on BBC and Sky Atlantic reflect the great divide between the two broadcasters.
Time was when the BBC drama department produced such cutting edge plays as Cathy Come Home and TV playwrights like Dennis Potter, but Towards Zero was sterile.
Having read every Agatha Christie novel at least once, I can say she is weak on characterisation but strong on plot.
In both episodes the lawyer Treves intones that it’s not the murder which is important, but the build up. Oh really?
In Towards Zero it is 30 minutes into the second episode before the murder is committed.
In White Lotus a murder takes place in the first episode, but you don’t know who the victim is, let alone the perpetrator.
The point of a “whodunnit” is precisely that. Take it away and you have little drama.
The writer substitutes a menage a trois (of Neville his first and second wife) but the French do this sort of thing imuch better.
The second episode of Towards Zero was plodding.
Conversely, in the third episode of White Lotus the patina that these rich, entitled , Americans were enjoying their holiday was subtly stripped away.
The sassy university gals – one of whom became a well-known TV presenter – searched for fun in a different hotel, only to find out that it was for retirees and widows.
They decamped to a street festival only to be set upon by street urchins with water pistols.
Tim Ratcliffe, the patriarch financier, recovers his mobile phone from storage only to discover that, not only is he going to be indicted by the FBI but also he will have all his assets sequestrated. One feels that his wife, superficially contemptuous of wealth, will he the worst affected.
Rick (Walter Coggins), who is under pressure from his younger girlfriend Chelsea to be more open, admits that his reason for wanting to go to Bangkok is to meet the killer of his father and that the killer owned the hotel.
In this un-redeeming horror show is Belinda, who run the spa of the Hawaiian White Lotus hotel, is deeply and justifiably mistrustful of a Greg Hunt who entertains the guests on his superyacht.
Poor Gaitan, the security man, is getting somewhere with his young true love only for his gun to disappear.
The acting and dialogue are excellent and – given the enduring equality of British actors – you might have thought they could do far better.
