Saturday, October 15, 2022

Rating Richard Armitage

I discovered Richard Armitage alongside millions of other TV viewers, only ten years later. That sounds like an oxymoron, so let me explain. North & South, the miniseries that made Armitage a star, aired on BBC in 2004 and was released on DVD a year later — but I didn’t come across it until 2014. Nevertheless, it was my introduction to Armitage, and just like audiences a decade earlier, I was transfixed; I proceeded to seek out as many of his performances as I could. I’m not one to let an actor dictate my TV viewing — I tend to choose properties based on the creator and/or the premise — but Armitage is one of a handful of artists whom I determinedly follow from show to show. (Others include James Norton, Nicola Walker, Ben Whishaw and Mireille Enos.) I make a point of researching what they’re up to next, and I make a point of tuning in. I trust them to choose smart properties, and I look forward to seeing what they'll do with them.

So let’s focus in on eight TV series or specials in which Armitage is top billed, and judge not merely the quality of the shows themselves, but Armitage’s performances. (We’ll go the traditional route and rate them on a scale of 1 to 10.) And we’ll start, of course, with the show that truly launched his career.

North & South (2004): It’s my first entry, and we’re already cheating: Armitage is second billed, not first. But if you’re not going to include North & South, how do you legitimately offer an overview of Armitage’s TV career? It’s the famed miniseries where the BBC message board crashed following the broadcast of the first episode, because so many viewers wrote in to swoon over this new leading man. It’s been praised and remembered as an affecting romance between a pastor’s daughter from the south and a mill owner from the north, but the real love story is between Richard Armitage and the camera. He was at that point five years into his television career; he was by no means a newcomer, but nonetheless his skill and assurance are surprising. He attacks the character with the ease of an old pro: reconciling his passion and his prudence, his eagerness to learn and his unwillingness to compromise. He neatly balances the warmth with which he showers his family and friends and the callousness he reserves for his employees. When steely mill owner John Thornton first meets prim Margaret Hale and is instantly smitten, Armitage’s choices are refreshingly subtle; you can tell from the gentle way his eyes light up, and the way the edges of his lips almost involuntarily curl into a half smile that he’s feeling a kind of affection that’s new to him. He’s the most unlikely yet convincing of suitors. His face is awash in feeling, and the camera is content to catch it in silence, as he stares longingly out the window, or strides down the fictional streets of Milton (modeled after Manchester), or commandeers the tight corridors of his cotton mill. He’s frequently captured in profile: his long, black frock coat, high starched collar and wraparound necktie setting him apart from the drab, gray, untidy surroundings. He cuts such a striking figure that he engenders your sympathy; his long monologue detailing the death of his father when he was young, and his need to take over caring for his family, is so eloquent that it upends the novel’s intent. Elizabeth Gaskell wrote her 1854 novel to speak to the plight of the mill workers, but such is the power of Armitage’s performance that the TV adaptation becomes the strange concoction that leaves you sympathetic to the owners. As an expression of Gaskell’s concerns, it’s a muddle-headed mess, but as a piece of drama, it’s a compact and sturdy vehicle enlivened by a slew of fine supporting performances: Sinéad Cusack, Brendan Coyle, Anna Maxwell Martin and Tim Pigott-Smith among them. It benefits from a memorable musical score, and from the kind of set dressings the BBC can manage with their eyes closed. What it lacks is a decent leading lady. As Margaret Hale, first-billed Daniela Denby-Ashe wanders through much of the proceedings with a shroud of confusion on her face. As scripted, Hale is quick to pass judgment, but slow to absorb the facts. She’s imagined as an Austen heroine (of course she is: the BBC had scored one of its biggest hits with its 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice), but Ashe seems determined to play her as a Brontë heroine — and can’t reconcile the differences. She keeps rushing from the room as if in turmoil, but her innermost thoughts remain inchoate and insufficient. It’s a curiously impassive performance, even at its most energetic. She doesn’t seem high spirited or even high maintenance — anything that would help propel the narrative. She frequently has the look of someone whose features have been smudged onto the screen. Armitage convinces you that he’s fallen hopelessly in love; you simply can’t understand what he’s fallen for. In just about every department, North & South is a triumph, and it’s hard to see how Armitage’s performance could be bettered; it’s a sumptuous and engrossing drama with one wild wrong note. I’d advise you to watch now and muse on that misstep later. Currently streaming on BritBox.
North & South: 8
Richard Armitage: 10

The Golden Hour (2005): One of four series commissioned by ITV's then-head of drama, Nick Elliot, in order to woo younger audiences — and then, although ratings held firm through its short run, discarded after just four episodes. The series — headlined by Armitage, fresh off his star-making turn in North & South, and co-starring the formidable trio of Navin Chowdhry, Zoe Telford and Ciarán McMenamin — centers around the activities of a specialist medical unit, the Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS), operated by the London Ambulance Service. (The lead actors trained with a real HEMS team from the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel — one of whom, Dr. Gareth Davies, served as a consultant on the series.) In each episode, the team is summoned to the site of an incident with multiple victims: a collision or explosion. (The title refers to the first hour after traumatic injury, deemed most critical for patients.) As the doctors treat the wounded on site, we flash back to key moments in the lives of the victims and the doctors themselves. The flashbacks, of course, are a "hook" — not merely a way of getting to know the victims (and catching up on what the doctors — all of them dealing with personal issues, some of them interpersonal — have been doing since the last episode), but a way of infusing the proceedings with an air of mystery: what happened to get these people to this specific spot at this precise point in time. As the victims are first being treated, we flash back minutes, to check in on them just prior to the incident; as the episode progresses, once they've become more than mere statistics, we journey further into their pasts and linger there for longer, uncovering aspects of their personalities and backstories we hadn't imagined, putting a fresh spin on everything we've seen up to that point. The flashbacks keep rebooting and redirecting the narrative, but for all the twists and turns that they provide, they never feel manipulative; creator Andrew Rattenbury's formula is too well-considered, and his approach too even-handed. His variations are clever and plentiful, and Rattenbury seems in no danger of running through them anytime soon. And the subplots for the four doctors — Armitage and Telford's characters coping with a new relationship, Chowdhry's stressing over a messy separation — are given sufficient airtime without overwhelming the procedural premise, and are presented sanely, without the excesses of soap opera. As for Armitage, his mastery of his craft had allowed him to age North & South’s John Thornton well beyond his own years; his face carried the weight of his background and his burden. Here, freed from that backstory, he seems a good five years younger, and The Golden Hour offers a chance to watch him develop a role in a contemporary setting. The first episode relegates him to exposition — explaining the unit’s methods to a group of supervisors who will determine its future funding (all while he explains the premise to the audience) — and Armitage doesn’t really find a way of enlivening it. But once he’s thrust into the heart of the action, he comes to life; his uncommon ability to dramatize shrewd decision-making guided by gut instinct — very much on display here — will soon become his stock-in-trade. The tale has been passed down that ITV — although impressed with the format — was disappointed with the quality of the story-telling itself. Then someone posted the four episodes to YouTube and gave lie to that myth: the story-telling is superb. So whatever prompted ITV to lose interest, it wasn't about the writing. The episodes have since been removed from YouTube, but it’s worth checking back occasionally to see if they’ve been reposted.
The Golden Hour: 9
Richard Armitage: 8

The Impressionists (2006): Julian Glover is an elderly Claude Monet, still painting away in Giverny: his garden now overgrown with trees and vines, his lakes still bubbling with water lilies — and a fresh-faced reporter eager to interview him. And so, with Glover narrating his life story, we flash back fifty years, to Richard Armitage as a youthful Monet, befriending Bazille, Renoir, Manet, Degas and Cezanne and forging the Impressionist movement. They starve and suffer amiably, these artists. There are no overt histrionics or lengthy descents into melodrama, because that would be untoward in a coffee table book — and that’s basically what The Impressionists is: something lovely to look at and thumb through. The chief visual conceit is that we keep dissolving from the subject matters being painted into the actual paintings themselves. The first few times it happens, the effect takes your breath away; you feel as you do when you turn a corner in a museum and happen upon a masterpiece. But not unexpectedly, the returns diminish quickly after that, and although writers Sarah Woods and Colin Swash try to vary the tricks — as when Monet corrals Bazille and Renoir into an afternoon in Fontainebleau and three different vantage points yield, in turn, Renoir’s Dans la Forêt de Fontainebleau, Bazille’s Forêt de Fontainebleau and Monet’s Le Pavé de Chailly — there are only so many canvases to pull from. As scripted, Monet is the leader of the group, the wrangler — the one whose levelheadedness keeps his less focused colleagues on track. Armitage doesn’t make any missteps; he’s given a lot of airtime, but not very much to do — and it would’ve been lovely if along with the cheerleading, we saw more of Monet’s darker hues: the torment, the anguish. The man so foul tempered and riddled with self-doubt that he often took a knife to his own canvases. Instead we get Monet as unswerving advocate, which — don’t get me wrong — he was, but there was so much more to him than that. Armitage brings conviction and exuberance and passion to the role; he just doesn’t bring a lot of complexity. To be sure, the script doesn’t ask him to, but he commands so much screen time that you wary of him a bit, while the other actors — seen in shorter vignettes — seem somehow fuller and their story-lines more compelling. Will Keen’s Cezanne, Charlie Condou’s Renoir, Andrew Havill’s Manet and Aden Gillett’s Degas: they’re reduced to types, but they complement each other well, and you not only get to know them swiftly, but to understand their artistic sensibilities. Each episode begins with an oddly defensive disclaimer: “This is a true story. The events are based on letters, records and interviews of the time.” (Was there a fear that audiences might think these artists were fictional?) The elder Monet’s reflections rarely rise above the routine (“Cezanne invited Renoir and myself to visit him in Provence. With its vivid colors and intense light, it was another world”), and although it would be nice to pretend that the miniseries’ own vivid colors and intense lighting were an homage to the Impressionist style — that there’s some sort of visionary guiding the process — you can’t shake the suspicion that what you’re seeing from director Tim Dunn (a former BBC production trainee, in one of his first assignments) is more an absence of vision: the whole thing seems no more than a durable canvas of platitudes and clichés. But the real-life canvases are so stunning — and the supporting players so engaging — that for all its leisurely pacing, it leaves you entertained and even a bit educated, like a good guided tour of a new exhibition. A word of warning: five years after airing this docudrama, BBC debuted a four-part documentary with the same freaking title. (Oh, OK, there’s a subtitle: Painting and Revolution.) These two series are forever being confused; Amazon Prime thinks it’s got the Armitage drama, but when you rent it, it’s the 2011 documentary. At the moment, I only see The Impressionists at YouTube, uploaded by some kind soul who didn’t seem to notice that the sound cuts out ten minutes into episode 1. Presently, it seems almost as hard to relive the Impressionist movement as it was to forge it.
The Impressionists: 6
Richard Armitage: 5

MI-5 Series 9 (2010): It’s the long-running BBC series about a group of MI-5 officers based out of the service’s Thames House headquarters. (The original, UK title is Spooks, a popular colloquialism for spies; due to the racist connotations of the word in some countries — including, Lord knows, the United States — international broadcasts are often renamed MI-5.) Apart from Peter Firth, most of the actors stuck around for just a few seasons — then their characters typically got killed off in the field, as they were making the world a safer place. Richard Armitage had by this point done two dutiful seasons as Lucas North, a former section chief who’d been imprisoned in Russia before returning to active service — and he felt it was time to go. He agreed to one final season, and new headwriters Jonathan Brackley and Sam Vincent were brought on board to mastermind it. (They would go on to create the splendid sci-fi drama Humans; this was my introduction to the team, and I became an instant fan.) It’s common, because of the infusion of new blood into Season 9, to say that it’s a wonderful season of television that’s not a terribly good season of MI-5 — the implication being that Brackley and Vincent knew how to write, but didn’t really understand the format, or the appeal, or the characters. On the contrary, I would argue that Series 9 — the only one in which Armitage is top-billed — is a superior season of MI-5 that’s a somewhat flawed piece of television. It’s easily one of my favorite seasons, but I’m the oddball viewer who can't stand the previous two, because I find top-billed Hermione Norris so unconvincing. Armitage is front and center for Series 9, and the show benefits mightily. He’s rewarded not only a hefty role in all the operations, but a continuing story-line that calls his very character — and backstory — into question. In some ways, it’s a problematic rewrite that negates a whole lot of what’s come before it, but the acting opportunities it affords Armitage more than compensate. Brackley and Vincent reward Armitage with a season-long breakdown, in which Lucas North — confronted with damning evidence from his past — can’t seem to hold on to his man he’s become, or find his way back to the man he was; trapped between identities, he falters and flails, turning against the colleagues he trusts and respects the most. (Without spoiling too much, he goes out in a manner atypical of MI-5 agents.) Series 9 has other felicities. The additions of Sophia Myles and Max Brown to the cast are splendid ones, and the operations are clever, varied and entertaining. (One of the best, from the reliable David Farr, employs a Rashomon-like structure.) And it also has its shortcomings: a static fifth episode (of eight) that grinds the season arc to a halt just as it’s gaining momentum; a new agent brought in for the season closer, to oversee the operation when Lucas goes rogue — when what you really want to see is more of Myles and Brown. And most damagingly, the actress assigned to play Lucas’s love interest is pretty but pallid. Given that the show’s procedural format is going to limit her screentime, Laila Rouass is precisely the wrong kind of actress for the role. Rouass has charm — and warm, sad eyes — but you need a firebrand: someone who can make an instant impression, and help the audience understand Lucas’s craving, and why he’s willing to risk everything to satisfy it. But at the end of the day, the flaws fall away. Armitage is focal for the entire series, and you can’t take your eyes off him. Well aware of his skill at multitasking emotions, he shuts out the audience at key tipping points; you see that Lucas is slipping, but you can’t tell how fast, or how steep the descent. His actions seem to be outpacing his thoughts, and desperate to ascertain his state of mind and anticipate his next steps, you search for clues that Armitage is deliberately withholding. He denies audiences the qualities they’ve come to love about him most — his openness and accessibility — knowing it will disorient them just as Lucas himself is disoriented by the unfolding events. This cat-and-mouse game between Armitage and the viewer is exhilarating and disturbing, and quite unlike anything in his repertoire. Currently streaming on BritBox.
MI-5 Series 9: 8
Richard Armitage: 10

Strike Back Series 1 (2010): It's like MI-5 on steroids. Based on the novel of the same name by former Special Air Service soldier Chris Ryan, Strike Back follows the actions of Section 20, a secretive branch of MI6 that operates priority missions across the globe. If your favorite Richard Armitage is the one who’s hellbent on saving the world — and will brook any amount of suffering to do so — then this is the series for you. If you’re in search of subtlety, wit or character development, look elsewhere. Strike Back Series 1 is all action, all the time, and everything else is low priority, including the very premise of the piece (minor spoiler ahead), which finds Special Forces soldier John Porter making an apparent error in judgment during a mission to Iraq that gets members of his own unit killed. By the end of the second episode, facts come to light that suggest Porter might not have been at fault, but the ongoing mystery is quickly subordinated to the military drama, as Porter renews his quest for redemption. (The first season consists of three missions — to Iraq, Zimbabwe and Afghanistan, respectively — each spanning a pair of episodes. The best is the first, from Jed Mercurio, an acclaimed writer whose output I seem to have some natural immunity to; when a female intelligence officer is assigned to seduce Porter prior to his first mission, to boost his confidence — well, that's pretty much emblematic of Mercurio's uneasy embrace of sex as a warm-up to violence.) Everything is incidental to the missions. Porter is given a wife and daughter almost perfunctorily; there’s no clarity or consistency to the relationships. In one episode, his daughter — harboring resentment for the breakdown he underwent after his failed mission — is barely speaking to him; in the next, she’s hugging him and telling him how much she loves him. The wife is disposed of offstage — we’re told she’s ill and hospitalized, and then she dies. Armitage doesn’t make a false move, and although there's nothing we haven’t seen before — the fighting, the flirting — his commitment to the thin material never wavers. Why Armitage, who thrives on challenge, chose to pursue this particular vehicle during the hiatus between MI-5 Series 8 and 9 is a mystery (to me, at least), but he attacks the role with such vigor that Strike Back is rarely less than enjoyable, and occasionally engrossing. There’s a odd and prolonged detour to an orphanage in episode 4, like the principal cast unwittingly walked onto the set of Annie — and evidently aware that a good chunk of the audience literally worships Armitage, the writers devise a crucifixion scene for episode 6, during which Armitage is tied up and tortured, his bare torso fairly bursting off the small screen. Armitage put himself through months of intense physical training prior to filming, so he certainly pulls off the look, but it’s at that moment — as he’s moaning and sweating with the camera positioned just south of his crotch — that you pretty much have to abandon any pretense that you’re watching Strike Back because it’s “quality drama.” As the Section 20 department head, Andrew Lincoln seems energized by his character’s sketchiness; he has an amusingly perverse gift for self-preservation that rarely resurfaces during his stint on The Walking Dead. And Shelley Conn and especially Jodhi May are a blessing to the series; for a property so testosterone fueled, it’s gratifying that it’s two shrewd women who solve the season-long mystery. As a footnote, Strike Back is a challenge to locate. The first series, starring Armitage, aired on Sky One. Cinemax came aboard as co-producer for Season 2; Armitage was unable to continue, due to his commitment to The Hobbit, so the headwriter killed him off in the first episode and substituted an entirely new cast, changing the format into more of a buddy comedy. Cinemax decided that their first season should be called Season 1 — and the Armitage episodes ignored altogether. It wasn’t until Armitage became an household name via The Hobbit that Cinemax decided to make his season available — but since they had already labeled the second season as Season 1, they rebranded Armitage’s Strike Back: Origins. So if you’re looking for Season 1, don’t; look for Strike Back: Origins, available at Amazon Prime.
Strike Back Series 1: 4
Richard Armitage: 7

The Crucible (2014): A deafening, wearying misfire of Arthur Miller’s classic, marked by a sort of stylized hysteria. Presented at the Old Vic in 2014, then filmed before a live audience, it suggests one of those stage productions where a mesmerizing director — here, Yaël Farber — wields such hypnotic power over the actors that they stand by and defend the terrible choices they’re asked to make. They become so possessed by the director’s vision that they give over to it completely, at the cost of their own craft. Actors keep throwing themselves to the floor, or being tossed to the ground; after a while, you long for the occasional line to be delivered at eye level. And you practically beg for the occasional line to be delivered at a reasonable decibel level — the production pretty much amounts to three hours and ten minutes of nonstop screaming. As John Proctor, the Massachusetts farmer who becomes the victim of accusations, religious mania and his own moral convictions, Armitage certainly looks the part, and he should be magnificent: his bearing, his intensity, his gift for brooding introspection are tailor-made for the role. But he rarely gets a chance to act: he roars, he growls, but it's only in his two scenes with Anna Madeley (as his onstage wife Elizabeth) that he’s permitted to bring down the volume, and start to dig into character. (And even here, you’re aware that with months of performances behind him, he's still not showing the kind of nuance he’s managed in roles with far less rehearsal.) When Liam Neeson essayed the role on Broadway, the production was equally overwrought, but it seemed scaled to Neeson’s physical presence. This production doesn’t seem tailored to Armitage’s strengths at all; it doesn’t seem to know — or even wonder — what they are. Armitage was hoarse by opening night, and he’s hoarse in this televised performance, so the presumption has to be that he spent most of the run struggling with the impossible vocal demands imposed upon him by the director. It’s distracting, and it’s maddening. If by the end of the rehearsal period, your leading man — the sole box-office draw — is already hoarse from having to raise his voice over several dozen shrieking cast members, maybe you need to rethink your approach to the material. The Crucible, set during the Salem witch trials, has proven a sturdy vehicle not merely because of the persuasiveness of its themes (Miller wrote it when his friend Elia Kazan starting naming names to the House Un-American Activities Committee), but because it invariably reflects contemporary concerns. The Neeson production anticipated the overreach of the Patriot Act; the 2016 Ben Whishaw staging timed to a dangerous wave of white nationalism. Watching this revival, it seems that one of Farber’s concerns is the rising power and prejudice of evangelicals, but it’s impossible to tell — everyone’s too busy yelling. This Crucible is tone deaf in almost every way: in its indifference to the subtleties of the text, in its willful dismissal of the talents and needs of its leading man, and in its apathy toward the audience, as it takes a lengthy play and adds ritualized scene changes that only serve to slacken the pacing. That the London critics greeted this production with hosannas is unsurprising: Farber’s reimagining of Strindberg’s Miss Julie had been a theatrical tour-de-force a few years earlier, and the critics had proclaimed her a major talent. Once critics start to fear their proclamations might have been a tad premature, they double down on them. (Tellingly, several reviewers noted that there were things they could complain about but wouldn’t, as if they were more concerned with maintaining the director’s reputation than scrutinizing the production.) The most regrettable aspect of this Crucible is that if anyone seems born to play John Proctor, it’s Armitage, but given the outsized acclaim this production received, it’s unlikely that he’ll feel the need to tackle the role again. Armitage himself, I suspect, would view this production as a high point of his career. I see it as a very sad, wasted opportunity. Available for viewing at Digital Theatre, for a minimal fee that comes to feel like a rip-off.
The Crucible: 2
Richard Armitage: 4

Berlin Station Season 1 (2016): This series about a fictional CIA branch operating in Berlin — from American spy fiction novelist Olen Steinhauer — ran three seasons on Epix. The three seasons vary wildly in approach and tone; in terms of quality, the first two are quite good. (A new showrunner comes in for the third season; his growing pains — combined with Armitage’s absence for a handful of episodes — drags the season down.) As I did with MI-5, I wanted to focus on one season, so you can sample Armitage without having to indulge in an entire meal. It could be argued that his Season 2 performance is a little stronger (he gets to go undercover as a white supremacist), but Season 1 is pretty much unlike anything I’ve seen on the small screen, and for that reason alone, it wins out. The second season of Berlin Station is what you expect when you hear the premise: it’s about a team of CIA agents in Berlin working in tandem to prevent an act of terrorism. The first season is the last thing you expect. (Slight spoiler to follow.) It’s not until the end of the season that you realize you haven’t been watching the show you thought you’d been watching; you’ve had the wool pulled over your eyes the whole time, as has the entire Berlin Station. Season 1 is an ambitious, diabolical bluff, and as a piece of technical construction, it’s a marvel. The only complaint I might level at it is that with no common “enemy” or “mission” established early on, the first few episodes are a little slow going, and it’s not until halfway through the fourth episode that the show starts to gather momentum. But be patient with it, and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed; the first season sneaks up on you, like a good CIA agent. Speaking of which, Steinhauer forges a deliberately unflattering look at the CIA. This is an agency where employees are more concerned with self-preservation than with gathering intelligence; everyone is jockeying for promotion or fighting for survival. “It’s no longer important to do what’s right,” one agent announces: “The only thing that matters is that we don’t get caught doing something wrong.” To which another asks, “What the fuck happened to our integrity?” — and the question is left unanswered. Armitage is Daniel Miller, who’s been sent to the Berlin office to unmask a whistleblower. He originally read for the part of disgruntled agent Hector DeJean (it ultimately went to Rhys Ifans, and became the breakout role), before the producers asked him to play Daniel. (Leland Orser, Michelle Forbes and Richard Jenkins complete the knockout cast.) It would’ve been interesting to see Armitage take on a role of such moral ambiguity. Instead he’s positioned — as he is so often — as the outsider with the fresh perspective who hasn’t yet been compromised, who operates without ego or eccentricity. He does admirably, and occasionally impressively, but you can't help but wish the role challenged him a bit more. That said, his acting choices are subtler than they’ve been, yet no less effective, and notably, the American accent that blanded out his performance in his 2014 film Into the Storm seems to have become second nature to him. He seems in possession of his full range of emotions. Through the course of the season, he and Ifans develop a twisted yet thoroughly absorbing double act — and hallelujah, after being saddled with subpar leading ladies in North & South and MI-5, he finally gets a love interest worthy of his talents. German-born Mina Tander appears halfway through Season 1, as Miller’s equivalent in German’s own anti-terror unit, the BFE; hers is clearly designed as a minor role, but her chemistry with Armitage is so apparent, so appealing and so useful that her role is instantly enlarged — to the series’ benefit. As noted, Season 1 is a wonder, and Armitage just a touch less so; if you continue into Season 2, flip the grades below. You can catch both seasons on Amazon Prime, and should.
Berlin Station Season 1: 9
Richard Armitage: 8

The Stranger (2020): Its plot is powered by a mystery woman who keeps appearing to residents of a town, threatening to expose family secrets if they don’t pay for her silence. But her efforts are practically redundant; the town is already a ticking time bomb of crimes and cover-ups. Netflix’s eight-part miniseries The Stranger is a potboiler in the best sense of the word, and if you give yourself over to it, you’re assured a marvelous time. It has the structure of an early Hercule Poirot, where Agatha Christie’s hand is a little liberal with suspects, and the feel of a late Miss Marple, where her hand is a little stingy with clues. Like the best Christies, it never gives you time to reflect on its flaws. And for a series in which nearly all the characters — even the minor ones — are hiding something (and not small secrets: we’re talking solicitation and Munchausen-by-proxy, animal beheadings and faked pregnancies — not to mention several counts of murder), it manages to stay remarkably grounded. It never gets so outrageous that you throw up your hands at the rapidly mounting reveals; on the contrary, you welcome them. Director Daniel O’Hara sets a tone in which even as characters’ lives are being shattered, they never lose their heads; their ability to soldier on sanely prompts viewers to respond in kind. In the opening episode, family man Adam Price is stunned when his wife confesses to duplicity, then ups and leaves town — but even as he puts together the pieces of her disappearance, he gets on with his daily routine; his enjoyment of life's simple pleasures aren’t marred by the mystery at hand. As Adam, Armitage is a revelation. As a longtime fan of his work, I’ll be the first to admit that he’s a very deliberate actor; it’s both a testament to and a drawback of his skill that his work seems well considered. In The Stranger, he taps into a gift for buoyancy and spontaneity. Freed from playing a character who has the fate of the world on his shoulders, Armitage grows more subtly comic, yet he risks more; on occasion, his Adam has the smirk of a schoolboy. Adam’s ability to compartmentalize his grief inspires Armitage to explore and reconcile all the seemingly contradictory aspects of his personality; the result might well be the most fully-rounded character he’s ever created. (Armitage seems to relish playing such an ordinary guy, and after seeing him save mankind in so many roles — with abilities just shy of superpowers — you take great delight in watching him fail to outrun a suspect twenty years his junior, or botch up a homegrown hunt for his wife’s whereabouts.) And second-billed Siobhan Finneran, as the detective investigating the disappearance of Adam’s wife, walks the same fine line as Armitage; through the course of the miniseries, her character suffers loss and betrayal, but Finneran sees to it that she never reaches a point of anger or despair from which she can't recover. That The Stranger takes you to places you don’t expect is a given — at times it seems intent on only taking you to places you don’t expect — but the nicest thing about it is that it doesn’t take you to the places you fear. It approaches all of the cinematic clichés, then sidesteps them. Most of the stocks in trade of the genre are blissfully absent: most specifically the part where the hero is “accused of a crime he didn’t commit.” As it turns out, the hero and the lead detective have a lot in common; they forge a bond through their shared sense of grief. (Armitage has a lovely rapport with his onscreen wife Dervla Kirwan, but it’s his late-stage teaming with Finneran that resonates most.) Never having read Harlan Coben’s novel, I can’t say if Danny Brocklehurst’s adaptation is “faithful to the source material.” All I can say is that this merry tale of malice is so much fun, I’ve watched it three times through. And as an atypical vehicle for Armitage, it reaps unexpected rewards.
The Stranger: 9
Richard Armitage: 10


Want more? Check out an essay called "Men in the Middle, highlighting four recent series that owe much of their success to the onscreen personas of their leading men: The Tourist, This Is Going to Hurt, The Responder and Around the World in 80 Days; an essay entitled "Rough Edges," in praise of two addictive comedies that I discovered in 2021, Back to Life and The Other Two; another entitled "Private Faces," highlighting two spectacular series that emerged in the fall of 2020, Roadkill and Life; and a fourth called "Unwilling Victims," taking a look at three recent series by and about women: The Trial of Christine Keeler, Deadwater Fell and Flesh and Blood. I offer up The Five Best TV Shows You Might Not Be Watching, Five Foreign TV Dramas You Shouldn't Miss, and my most personal essay, inspired by the death of my puppy Czerny in June of 2021, The 10 Most Comforting TV Episodes About Death.

If you like in-depth looks at hit shows, I delve into Rhoda Season 3, Maude Season 2, Newhart Season 7, WKRP in Cincinnati Season 4 and Bewitched Season 2; serve up my 10 Best Episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Designing Women, WKRP in Cincinnati and Kate & Allie; pen an appreciation of Mike & Molly; and offer up some thoughts as to why The New Adventures of Old Christine took such a tumble in quality over its five seasons. Or if you prefer dramas, check out my write-ups of of Criminal Minds Season 8, Judging Amy Season 6, Voyager Season 4, Doctor Who Series 8, Cold Case Season 4, Gilmore Girls Season 7 (and the subsequent, ill-judged Netflix miniseries), and fourteen essays devoted to all the seasons of the great nighttime soap Knots Landing, starting here. I also look back at Murder, She Wrote and pick out The 10 Best "Murder She Wrote" Mysteries: not (necessarily) the best episodes, but the best whodunnits.

9 comments:

  1. Another great piece, Tommy. And as always you've provided a few series I had no idea existed. Going to have to find Berlin Station ASAP.

    Totally agree on the MI-5 assessment, and The Stranger. My wife loved both those series (and North and South, too).

    Next up for her on her Armitage journey: Gallifrey: War Room from Big Finish. He plays Rassilon in this series, during the Time War. Should be fun to hear him act with Louise Jameson...

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    1. ‘Berlin Station’ is one of those shows that -- if I had watched it when it originally aired -- would’ve been in my “year’s best shows” round-up. But I don’t think we got around to binging it till 2019, after it had already left the air. I love that first season so much, I was delighted to have the chance to write about it here.

      As I think I’ve mentioned, I’ve still never checked out Big Finish, but if anything is going to get me to do it, it’s the combined star power of Richard Armitage and Louise Jameson. :)

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  2. Very interesting read! Thank you! Btw I have come to like the Impressionists series while I had my problems with the setting/him in the beginning. Tomorrow there'll be the Madrid premiere of "The Man from Rome" but I am actually waiting for "Now and then" after William Corlett's novel. And there's his 1st novel being released on 20th October, up to now unfortunately only as an audiobook. Plenty to look forward to!

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    1. So glad you found your way here, and so glad you enjoyed! I had no idea so many Armitage projects were coming up. I always make a point of checking IMDb, to make sure I'm not missing anything, but I often forget to click on their new "Upcoming Projects" tab. So exciting to see so much on the horizon!

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  3. Great reviews of some great Richard Armitage works! In my opinion, he's very underrated as an actor. He is so good at what he does, you almost forget these are fictional characters.( well most are). And thank you, Mr. Krasker, for your opinion on The actress who portrayed Margaret Hale, & most importantly how she portrayed her. Why Mr. Thornton was interested in her in the first place is beyond me. She went about her existence sleepwalking through her whole life! I felt the same way you did since I first came across North & South years ago, & sadly my opinion remains the same. If you love Richard's screen performances, check out his audio book career if you haven't already...he's outstanding, even behind the microphone! Life long fan here!!

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    1. I’m so delighted you found my blog, and doubly delighted you left a comment. I confess, I don’t know Armitage’s audio career at all, and will definitely check it out. And I confess, I was especially pleased that you agreed with me about the leading lady in ‘North & South.’ After I wrote that section, I read it to my husband, and he said, “Wow, you’re a little harsh.“ :) I wondered if I should tone it down, but it’s what I believe: like you say, I have no idea why Thornton has fallen for her. I don’t understand what the actress is doing on the screen. Her choices mystify me. But I confess, I haven’t seen anyone who agreed with me on that, so it was gratifying to read your comment. :)

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    2. Thank you! I always felt in the minority on this subject too as most viewers expressed their love for the portrayal of
      Margaret. It's gratifying to know I'm not alone!

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  4. I'm surprised this is missing Armitage's big TV credit for me, the 2006 Robin Hood, where his Guy of Gisborne pretty much stole the entire show. The show is not altogether wonderful and was one of those shows put in the BBC Saturday night slot to keep the Doctor Who audience happy between seasons, but Armitage is one of its high points as a slimy-yet-compelling villain.

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    1. Thanks so much for reading and commenting, TG. I decided to limit myself to vehicles in which Armitage was top billed, because otherwise the essay would’ve been twice as long, and I feared would’ve become a slog to read. (Since folks seem to be enjoying this essay, I may well do a follow-up where I look at roles in which he is *not* top billed; I’d especially welcome the opportunity to talk about his televised stage performance in ‘Uncle Vanya.’ ) But full confession: the other reason I liked that approach is because it kept me from having to review ‘Robin Hood.’ Wow, that sounds awful! :) But it’s a series I just didn’t take to (I never got past the first season), and I just could not bring myself to sit through the entire thing to properly review it — even though I thoroughly agree with you that Armitage pretty much walked off with the show..

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