The Honourable Woman

I have watched more TV over the past two weeks than I probably have since the beginning of the year. Heady days of World Cup football, Wimbledon tennis and F1 Grand Prix racing have kept me entertained amidst a calendar containing no 'soap' episodes, much to my wife's chagrin.

Beside my love for sport I do enjoy a good drama series. The Scandinavians are particularly good at producing these; The Killing and The Bridge are two typical examples. Occasionally we British come up with the goods and my interest was aroused in a new BBC2 drama entitled 'The Honourable Woman' - the first of eight episodes aired on Thursday. Written by Hugo Blick (that alone is usually a good recommendation) and starring Maggie Gyllenhaal as businesswoman Nessa Stein, this first episode had me gripped from the start.

Maggie Gyllenhaal

This could turn out to be the 'spook' drama to eclipse all predecessors. Scene stealing Stephen Rae (did you see him in 'The Crying Game' - brilliant) portrays sceptical MI6 agent Hugh Hayden-Doyle, a terrific performance that put me in mind of George Smiley. I will watch this first episode again today (series set to record on the Virgin box) with my wife who has yet to see it.

The momentum, richness and complexity of this drama are maintained throughout. If the remaining seven episodes are equal to this, The Honourable Woman will win every award going (yes, it's that good) and when it ends in the final days of summer its fans will be legion and messianic in its cause. Nothing on telly is going to be this good for some time to come.

24 Live Another Day

Jack Bauer is back. He's in London, and so is Chloe, who looks more like a punk groupie than an ex, disenfranchised CTU agent. I missed the first three minutes. ITV used a typical ploy of an over-run. Programme due to finish at 8:57pm on ITV (to allow for adverts before the 9:00pm start of their next airing) concluded at 9:02pm. As I switched channels to Sky 1 I realised what ITV had done. A rather pathetic attempt to spoil the start of a new blockbuster on another channel in the hope that viewers would switch back to them. Stuff and nonsense. I had already set my Virgin box to record all episodes of '24 Live Another Day' and I will have to watch these first two episodes again, merely because I missed the first three minutes! Which clearly has an impact on the plot-line.

Soon picked up the thread though and in typical '24' fashion the action was intense, the plot line emerged (I think), Bauer, as usual, seemed unassailable, but, wait a minute, what the hell are all these US agents doing running around the streets of London armed with automatic weapons like they own our capital city?!

All great fun though, and we now have to wait for the next episode every Wednesday for the next 10 weeks. Maybe I should have waited to watch all episodes back to back!