The week in TV: The Essex Serpent; the Baftas; Fergal Keane: Living With PTSD; Clark – The Guardian

The Essex Serpent Apple TV+The British Academy Television Awards (BBC One) | iPlayerFergal Keane: Living With PTSD (BBC Two) | iPlayerClark Netflix

There comes a time in every actors life when he must unbutton his period drama shirt and smoulder as if his life depends on it. In Apple TV+s new six-parter The Essex Serpent, based on the historical novel by Sarah Perry, adapted by Anna Symon, directed by Clio Barnard, this duty falls to Tom Hiddleston, but he rather fluffs it.

Hiddleston plays a late-19th-century pastor trying to soothe marsh-dwelling locals who believe they are being menaced by a giant mythical sea serpent (think the Loch Ness monster, but with Godzillas temper). Claire Danes plays English widow and naturalist Cora, who, freed of her abusive husband, takes her autistic child and socialist servant (Hayley Squires) to investigate the creature. Once in Essex spoiler alert! Cora is drawn into an anguished love triangle with Hiddlestons man of the cloth and his ailing wife (Clmence Posy).

In 1988, Ken Russells Lair of the White Worm wove a similar tale in the spirit of mythic campery. By contrast, The Essex Serpent is ambitiously gothic, coiling itself around a series of personal, mystical and ideological standoffs: principle versus emotion, faith versus rationalism, superstition versus science. Cora emerges as a proto-feminist with startling tangerine-hued hair (reminiscent of Cate Blanchetts Elizabeth I) and wonderfully dramatic clothes that echo the atmospheric Essex wetlands. These are conveyed in a series of misty aerial shots featuring cawing gulls and slabs of sodden mud. A recurring criticism of period drama is how prissy and vanilla it can be, sanitising rather than illuminating past eras, but visually this is in the red in tooth and claw zone: nature with its entrails out.

Sadly, the serpent keeps getting forgotten, when surely the idea of it the threat, the metaphor should be omnipresent. There is also the problem of chemistry, as in: Danes and Hiddleston dont have any. While Danes is suitably impassioned, Hiddleston clearly didnt get the sexy-religious-dude memo and somehow manages to be simultaneously stiff and soggy. Together, they exude the erotic heat of a bed bath administered with a lukewarm flannel. Its made worse because Frank Dillane, as Coras doctorly admirer, is brilliantly witty and naughty how come he receives a Victorian-era friend-zoning in favour of the drippy pastor? Im all for the way The Essex Serpent basks in gothic allure, but it could have been wilder.

Of all the serious issues raised by Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars, among the more minor is that awards ceremonies have been lent a certain frisson. Tuning into BBC Ones post-pandemic British Academy Television Awards at the Royal Festival Hall, hosted by Richard Ayoade, I wondered who might kick off: does brutality lurk untamed behind Olivia Colmans red-carpet smile?

Of course nothing happened. The reliably acid Ayoade briefly referred to the slap, while giving the starry audience less a mauling, more a teasingly non-specific pawing, like a cat toying with a roomful of overdressed celebrity mice: No one works harder than us. Apart from people in other professions.

This years categories were so absurdly strong, it was possible to fume as Cline Buckens missed out on best supporting actress for Showtrial and then cheer as Cathy Tyson won it for Help. Similarly, it was only right that Time won best miniseries, and an absolute outrage that the other contenders Landscapers, Stephen, Its a Sin didnt.

Shock of the night was that Its a Sin won zilch, despite a plethora of nominations (it did win the big award best director at Baftas Television Craft awards in April). Along the way, Channel 4 and the BBC were showered with podium love, and quite right too. These are, after all, perilous times for broadcasting: Nadine Dorries is in charge, a woman who probably thinks dramatic licence is something she should be charging pensioners for.

In the BBC Two documentary Fergal Keane: Living With PTSD, the much-garlanded Irish war correspondent a 30-year veteran of conflict zones including Northern Ireland, South Africa and Rwanda examines how reporters can return unharmed, but only on the outside.

Keane went public some time ago about his PTSD (he was diagnosed in 2008), and the documentary opens with him reporting from Ukraine, then withdrawing, saying he wouldnt be able to cope. From there, he is all brutal honesty as he examines the ego and addiction of war reporting, alongside the idealism and the relentless havoc PTSD wreaks on mental health. Keane suffered nightmares about being trapped beneath bodies, used alcohol to medicate, and turned into a paranoid nightmare his family were forced to tiptoe around. Its shite, he says simply.

Keane brings in other voices, including the therapist who helped him and a former Rwandan child refugee, now living in Paris, whose escape in the back of a truck Keane reported. Towards the end of this fascinating, candid documentary, Keane says matter-of-factly: Its not finished the story of me and PTSD. Indeed, hes shown returning to Ukraine; away from the frontline to report on the refugee crisis, but still, there he is. You wonder if this is his way of forging a PTSD compromise with himself.

If youre yearning for something different, watch Clark on Netflix. Swedish-made, in six parts, it stars Bill Skarsgrd as Clark Olofsson, Swedens favourite gangster and charismatic super-seducer, whose myrad real-life criminal escapades include the Norrmalmstorg bank robbery that inspired the psychological term Stockholm syndrome.

Olofssons life story is bizarre enough: if hes not smuggling drugs in oranges from Beirut, hes seducing the ladies or barking his catchphrase at officialdom: Go shit yourself! Instead of calming all this down, director Jonas kerlund ramps everything up with a frenetic pace, surrealist graphics and gonzo humour. Skarsgrd is superb, playing Olofsson with crazed screwball energy. Im halfway through, and its becoming a little tiring: Ill be needing paracetamol and a nap soon. Still, for those who can hack it, Clark is that rarest of TV phenomena: something that feels genuinely original.

Glow UpBBC ThreeThe brilliant makeup competition returns for a third series, judged by Val Garland and Dominic Skinner. Its not just about smoky eyes. The makeup artists tackle everything from drag to TikTok to screen prosthetics. Inventive and absorbing, BBC Three also has an Irish version.

TehranApple TV+This is the second outing for the tense Israeli global espionage undercover spy thriller, starring Niv Sultan. Glenn Close joins the cast for this series, and considering her thrillingly predatory form throughout Damages, you feel anything could happen.

Commando: Britains Ocean WarriorsBBC TwoA new four-part series follows intensive commando training as Royal Marine recruits endure gruelling ordeals to win themselves a much-coveted green beret. Prepare to be shocked at how young they look: the most junior recruit is 17.

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The week in TV: The Essex Serpent; the Baftas; Fergal Keane: Living With PTSD; Clark - The Guardian