![]() ![]() ![]() Does the crime justify the trial (and potential punishment) that he faces? Barratt is extraordinary in the role of Ray, who is essentially a carer for his younger half-siblings, hanging to portray a child who is at once old beyond his years, but who is also frightened, impressionable and vulnerable. He may look like an angel, his lawyer muses, but he and his adult brother have both just been charged with brutally murdering their abusive step-father while he slept - and Ray will be put on trial in an adult court. Ray (played by Billy Barratt) is an apparently sweet-tempered 12-year-old boy who has endured a tumultuous childhood. When does a child become fully responsible for their actions? Can they ever be responsible? And what if those actions include something deadly serious? Something like murder? That’s one of the questions posed by documentary-maker Nick Holt’s factual drama Responsible Child, examining how in England and Wales, children as young as ten can be put on trial for murder. Small but perfectly formed, Life on Mars ran for just two series and kept us guessing till the very end – was Sam mad, in a coma or back in time? – with a sequel series starring Keeley Hawes, the 1980s-set Ashes to Ashes, following and running for three series. As the aggressive, politically incorrect DCI Gene Hunt, Philip Glenister might get all the best lines, but it’s Simm’s powerful lead performance that helps ground the madness, with Liz White, Dean Andrews and Marshall Lancaster offering able support as part of a faultless cast. The show’s central gimmick allows Life on Mars to function beautifully as two very different shows at once – a glorious throwback to rock 'em, 'sock 'em British cop shows of the 1970s like The Sweeney and The Professionals and an intriguing fantasy thriller that takes in time travel and unsettling hallucinatory (or are they?) sequences. ![]() Life on Mars might be 15 years old now – it’s painful to consider that, if the series were made today, an equivalent storyline might see present-day copper Sam Tyler transported back to the early 1990s – but this terrific drama, which sees John Simm’s Sam wake up in 1973 after a traffic collision, has lost none of its power to impress. Rather than opt for a third series, the Williams brothers instead decided to continue the story of Baptiste in a spin-off, which launched on BBC One in 2019 and is also available to stream on BBC iPlayer. With terrific performances and plot turns you just won't see coming (fair warning: don't get too attached to any of the characters!), The Missing is haunting, surprising and utterly unmissable television. James Nesbitt was BAFTA nominated for his superb, heartbreaking turn in the first series as Tony Hughes, the father to missing boy Oliver who refuses to give up on his son, while the second series featured an equally impressive cast, with David Morrissey, Keeley Hawes and Laura Fraser appearing opposite Karyo in the twisting tale of two kidnapped girls, Alice Webster and Sophie Giroux, and the surprising link between them. Each series explored a different missing person's case, with Tchéky Karyo's enigmatic and charismatic investigator Julien Baptiste serving as the connective tissue between the two. This BBC thriller from writing duo Harry and Jack Williams delivered two gripping series, both of which kept viewers guessing until the very end.
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