Tuesday 3 April 2012

White Heat: S1 Ep4 - The Personal Is Political

On TV: Thursday 29th February 2012
Channel: BBC Two 9pm
Episode Type: 4/6

In 1 Sentence: Experiencing a mid series lull; this week was a little low on drama but at least we got to get to know some of the characters a bit more...
BBC Summary: In 1979, the seven flatmates come together to celebrate Alan and Lilly's wedding. Jay confronts his biggest fear and decides to tell his parents he is gay. Jack decides to join mainstream politics but his aspirations are threatened when Victor is arrested by the police after a stop and search.


My Review: We finally get to see Alan and Lilly tie the knot this week and with things finally happening between Charlotte and Victor right at the end of the episode it got me thinking about how ridiculously unrealistic this is. It’s a shame as it looks beautiful and is a great series but seriously... it wouldn’t take over a decade for Victor to make a move on Charlotte and surely after all these years they wouldn’t all still live in this student house together - I thought they were meant to be lawyers and doctors and the like. It’s just hard to take seriously and I hate to say it... it’s becoming a little twee.
Despite its lack of credibility it makes up for it with the great characters that we’re still getting to know. Orla and Jay have been sidelined throughout but finally we get to see a bit more to them. You can’t help but feel sorry for Orla - first her brother was killed by the IRA and now she tries to help a homeless boy and he ends up robbing her blind. Yet, she is portrayed in such a saintly manner its hard to not get annoyed at how ‘perfect’ she is portrayed. There has to be a flaw somewhere! Whereas Jay is stack full of flaws and I still don’t really like him unfortunately as I know so little about him.
The episode was a slow-burner, and so compared to last week, there was little progression. We got to see Jack finally face up to his actions and attempt to make something of himself, before that falls to pieces too. I felt really bad for him as you could tell that he was really trying and that he truly loves Charlotte. But unfortunately his politics and - most importantly - the drugs will always come first. Next week things take a downward spiral in that storyline and so it will be interesting to see how that turns out.
The slowness continued into the modern day scenes and we were teased with another character potentially showing up... but no just “the skip man”. All this teasing is getting a bit much now and I hope we see at least one more character turn up next week or I’m going to get rather annoyed.
It’s a shame but this episode just didn’t live up to the rest of the series’ standard as it just didn’t have the usual spark.
Let’s see if the 80’s bring a bit more drama!

Score: 7.5/10

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