I’ll tell you about Dead Ringers, created by Alice Birch (who co-adapted Normal People and has written for Succession), once I’ve removed my safety goggles and had a piping hot shower. There’s no stinting on reproductive gore in this Amazon Prime Video six-part remake of David Cronenberg’s psychological thriller about twin gynaecologists descending into mania. The 1988 film, starring Jeremy Irons, featured surgical instruments so misshapen and disturbing it was difficult to watch without squirming, but nor is this remodel for the faint-hearted. Babies pound out of vaginas; arms delve biceps-deep into oozing caesarean slits. I haven’t seen this much gushing blood since the lift scene in The Shining. Here is the miracle of life writ large as a fecund battlefield. Birch seems on a mission to do for childbirth what Normal People did for sex: as near as dammit show it for real.
You could be forgiven for groaning “not another reimagined” old film! But the new series doesn’t aim to be a dead ringer, as it were, for the original. It’s gender-swapped, with Rachel Weisz playing the female gynaecologist twins: domineering, drug-addled, sexually predatory Elliot (all flowing mane and punk sizzle) and the tense, subdued lesbian Beverley (hair yanked back; soon shown miscarrying her own pregnancy). They act as one when skewering a drooling sexist oaf (“Is your imagination so fucked you have to see everything twice before your dick gets hard?”), when they swap identities for Elliot to procure a new lover (Britne Oldford) for Beverley, and in getting their precious birthing centre funded. Then there is the sickly sweet toxicity of their twindom, the chokehold of co-dependence.
Dead Ringers juggles myriad themes: infertility; IVF; the medical establishment; race; scientific ethics, all peppered with Succession-esque swipes at uber-wealth (Jennifer Ehle is terrific as an odious backer, smirking in jumbo glasses like a malevolent Gloria Steinem). At times it over-reaches and succumbs to the streamer-disease of laborious subplots and overlong detours (investor soirees; employees behaving strangely; gluey streams of sociopolitical consciousness). Still, the hot creepy mess of the twin dynamic is beautifully executed: Weisz slips on the dual skins with campy relish. She is particularly vivid as Elliot, who feels like a classic Hollywood monster.
Over on ITV1, the three-episode drama The Hunt for Raoul Moat, written by Kevin Sampson, outlined the real-life events of 2010 when, newly released from Durham prison, Moat (played by Matt Stokoe) shot three people. He wounded his ex, Samantha Stobbart (Sally Messham), murdered her new partner Christopher Brown (Josef Davies), and blinded PC David Rathband (who later killed himself).
One key challenge of true-crime drama is how to avoid glorifying murderers at the expense of victims and their families (some of whom objected to this miniseries). Self-pitying, rage-fuelled, known for intimidating women, and imprisoned for attacking a child relative, Moat personified toxic masculinity. Nevertheless, some deemed him a folk hero for his survivalist evasion of the police (the drama’s opening scenes show fans making a twisted pilgrimage to the town of Rothbury, close to which he shot himself).
THFRM makes a genuine effort to focus on the victims. Messham is touching as the scared young woman, inadvertently stoking Moat’s fury by pretending that Brown is a policeman. Lee Ingleby is gruffly stoic as a senior officer. The bizarre real-life arrival of footballer Paul Gascoigne, brandishing a fishing rod and cooked chicken, offering to speak to Moat, isn’t shown. Only grunting sporadically (“Are you taking me seriously now?”), Stokoe lends Moat no semblance of lone wolf charisma as he trudges around, face set like suet, with a sawn-off shotgun.
At other times, THFRM feels thuddingly basic. It pinpoints the rising online support for Moat, but barely examines it. There’s no real sense of the ghoulish unfolding media circus surrounding the standoff (at the time, it felt shocking: a manhunt framed almost as public entertainment). What emerges is a well-intentioned, solidly acted, but monochromatic retelling. While it rightly bleaches itself of sensationalism, there are too many other blanks.
Netflix’s new six-part political thriller The Diplomat sounded like it couldn’t fail. Starring Keri Russell (The Americans), it’s created by Debora Cahn, who worked on The West Wing and Homeland.
Russell plays Kate Wyler, a serious-minded, straight-shooting US career diplomat who’s forced to be the UK ambassador and live in a stately home residence in Regent’s Park. Although their marriage is collapsing, she’s joined by her retired diplomat husband, (Rufus Sewell, confusingly doing a raffish “US Hugh Grant” turn). Kate proceeds to complain about the serious (an Iranian plot-thread) and the facile (a magazine shoot) with equal ferocity.
While Kate is something of a Carrie Mathison clone (bad temper, unbrushed hair), the US staff recall the fast-talking element of The West Wing. Elsewhere, there are relentless fish-out-of-water/Emily in Paris-esque jibes at British formality. Rory Kinnear plays the British prime minister as a cheeky mashup of Tony Blair and Boris Johnson.
I loved Homeland, and I’m always up for a decent political thriller, but, a few episodes in, The Diplomat feels laboured and dated. If you want to watch people standing in posh rooms pointlessly arguing and furthering British stereotypes, you’re better off sticking on a Downton Abbey repeat.
Our Changing Planet (BBC One) is a chance to check in on the progress of an ambitious seven-year global eco-project that began last year. The idea is that six wildlife presenters (Chris Packham, Ella Al-Shamahi, Steve Backshall, Liz Bonnin, Ade Adepitan and Gordon Buchanan) annually revisit climate-damaged areas of the world to see how conservation missions are going.
The first of the two episodes is a treat from the off: who knew that it was possible to “listen” to a coral reef (Backshall in the Maldives) or that reeking mucus is the only way to sex a beaver (Bonnin in California)? Tagging along with a research team in Greenland, Packham is practically creaking with cold, but he still finds the energy to bury his face deep into the dense fur of a tranquilised musk ox to get a good sniff. Classic Beeb wildlife magic.
Star ratings (out of five):
Dead Ringers ★★★★
The Hunt for Raoul Moat ★★★
The Diplomat ★★
Our Changing Planet ★★★★
What else I’m watching
Deborah James: Bowelbabe in Her Own Words
(BBC Two)
A wonderful, hugely emotional documentary made by the inspirational “check your poo” activist Deborah James. It’s about James living (truly living) with bowel cancer, in the five years before her death at 40 last year.
Judy Blume Forever
(Amazon Prime Video)
A documentary (which premiered at the 2023 Sundance festival) about the acclaimed US author (Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret), whose “radical honesty” about teen travails (menstruation, dating, bullying) continues to educate/entertain worldwide.
Will Trent
(Disney+)
A left-field crime series based on Karin Slaughter’s Atlanta-set novels. Ramón Rodríguez is the irregular (dyslexic) special agent, dubbed “Rat Snitch Traitor” for exposing corrupt officers. Erika Christensen plays his equally nonconformist colleague/on-off love interest.
