How often do you watch a pilot, then immediately watch it again? Not often, in fact rarely, right? I just have. Absolutely enthralled by the fast pace, intertwining world events with daily family life. A mixed race and class family cemented by two brothers and a sister, helped along by a Gran that says some outrageous things but is quite happy to accept all no matter what their race or sexuality because they're family.
The Alt Right are having kittens about this one, so it's already doing some good. 'Little Englanders' are claiming it's an attempt by the 'Marxist' BBC to feed the people anti Right propaganda, mostly because they don't like freedom of speech unless it's used for hurling insults or the idea of little brown babies with gay uncles. Or just the idea that people can get along without the need for a label denoting their origin, and therefore status.
Sometimes Auntie Beeb is Left, sometimes Right, but always consistent with the quality of its dramas. This is one of the best I've seen for a long time, up there with Threads.
YOU WILL HATE IT IF... you don't like the modern world, what it has become, if you're wearing a red baseball cap, if you think all foreigners are rapists, terrorists or drug traffickers, that gay people go against God. You will despise it if you hate the idea of removing barriers rather than wanting to build more.
As the world in reality descends into a corrupt, billionaire run world where disparity between the haves and have nots is becoming more apparent by the day a drama like this is needed. The actors are already well known in the UK, most have been leads in other UK dramas, there's plenty of humour to lighten the load. Gran's insistence that tsunamis never used to happen, that they're 'a modern thing' had me howling. The original soundtrack adds an extra 20 beats a minute to an already racing heart rate, and is sometimes euphoric with speedy drums, violins frenetically going up the scales as choirs produce angelic cries of doom.
Most of all it's a warning, a 'be careful what you wish for'. I can't wait for ep 2.
UPDATE;
It's finished now, can't get across how disappointed I was with the final episode. Long monologues that seemed to want to cram in as much as possible. Almost like the writer, Russel T. Davies had planned on doing 8 episodes, but the producers said 'No. There's only enough money for 6' at the last minute, prompting a chaotic and clumsy rewrite. Same thing happened with Bodyguard, also a Beeb production. Come on BBC! This is why Netflix is kicking your backside at the mo'.
