I KNOW WHO YOU ARE, BBC4, SATURDAY, 9pm
I HAD to check I was on the correct channel because this new crime drama sounds like a teen horror flick from E4.
But no, this is BBC4, the home of classy, foreign dramas (although Channel 4’s Walter Presents strand is giving them a run for their money these days).
This new 10-part series is set in Spain, offering a blessed relief from Scandinavia.
A Spanish thriller with English subtitles, it opens with an injured man wandering along a road and into a petrol station.
He says he has no memory, and doesn’t know who he is, or why he’s there.
His wife arrives at the hospital and tells him his name and occupation – he’s a fancy lawyer and she’s a prominent judge – but there’s also disturbing news: their niece has gone missing, and her blood has been found in his crashed car.
The idea of a murderer with a lost memory was explored in the latest, and very disappointing, series of The Fall, and I’m glad to say this is far superior.
IMAGINE, BBC2, SATURDAY, 9pm
THE artist being profiled in this latest episode is Chris Ofili, a Turner Prize-winner.
I’ve never heard of him, and so could have complained about TV giving us fancy artists and elite pursuits, stamping my foot and asking why they don’t profile someone popular like Rod Stewart. But they have. And Chris Ofili is not an aloof, privileged artist, but a young guy from Manchester who often works with elephant dung.
So forget any notion you might have that this show is for middle-class luvvies who swan around galleries with a glass of champagne and a credit card. And forget the notion that art is about paint on canvas.
Ofili’s work is concerned with touch and texture, and he has worked with Edinburgh weavers to create huge wool tapestries. Now he’s ready to unveil this latest work, The Caged Bird’s Song, where his painting is being transformed into a rich and colourful tapestry. We see how it’s done, and why he chose this unusual method.
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THE HANDMAID’S TALE, C4, SUNDAY, 9.30pm
OBSERVE the later start time this week. The Athletics are on which means great drama must hang back for a bit. It’s like asking the Pope if he wouldn’t mind shifting Mass because a funfair wants to set up in St Peter’s Square.
Moving The Handmaid’s Tale to accommodate hopping, skipping and jumping? Pah!
I grumble because this week’s episode is particularly good.
The creepy Commander comes smirking and grinning to Offred, telling her he’s taking her out for the evening. When she gets over the shock he slides her dress over her knees and begins shaving her legs. He gives her some lipstick, high heels and a gold beaded dress.
I won’t reveal where they go, but Offred is dazzled, amazed and also horrified by where he takes her.
And driving them through the black city streets is Nick, who watches this suddenly sexy Offred with silent distaste.
The plot also winds back to give us Nick’s backstory, but that is a distraction from the creepy unleashed sexuality of the Commander and his glamorous, imprisoned companion.
THE LOCH, STV, SUNDAY 9pm
SCOTTISH Broadchurch. Soggy Broadchurch. Nessie Broadchurch. Have we decided yet how we’re going to remember this programme? We’re certainly not going to remember it for its own sake, or as a gripping crime drama, so we may as well come up with a nickname for it to jog our memories in years to come.
Tonight is the finale and I’m relieved. You can’t just stick “Loch Ness” on to a drama and think some of the mystique, beauty or fame of the loch will automatically transfer to the story. Viewers require a bit more, especially when the competition on other channels is so high.
A body is recovered from the loch tonight and the pathologist gets busy with hearts and brains, while a photo in the corpse’s wallet provides a clue to his identity.
Elsewhere, “KILLER SCUM” has been daubed in red paint on those pretty lochside houses – that won’t help property values – and the whole mess gradually escalates to a violent watery scene with an equally violent piano soundtrack.
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