BRITISH PROCEDURALS: w/Ironic Ads

STATE OF PLAY (BBC America). You may watch this for Kelly McDonald (from Gosford Park), your brother may watch it for Polly Walker (of Enchanted April), either way it's instructive how the Brits use beauty not merely to sell a story but advance a plot. It is unimaginable the MP Stephen Collins would cheat on his wife, especially given the picture of the vic. But it makes perfect sense why she would then take up with his friend, the journalist Cal McCaffrey (John Simm), and why he (and those of us identifying with him) doesn't really have any defenses. And if you thought Bill Nighy made a suitably dilapidated rock star in Love Actually, wait until you see him fend off bulldog bobbies in his office.

We thought Helen Mirren was back in good mettle as Det. Supt. Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect 6: The Last Witness, but Peter Barry's anti-genocide script had a couple cracks. First off, Tennison's dad gets introduced way too late in the story, he comes off like a cheap plot device instead of the wrenching witness that Frank Finlay portrays during his Holocaust remembrance. And why did they have to make DC Lorna Greaves (Tanya Moodie), the only black person on the squad, the big snitch? Extra heaps of praise for Ben Miles, last seen as the parading buffoon Montague Dartie in the Forsyte Saga.

Tomorrow I file a big chunks of huzzahs on new CDs from Melissa Auf Der Maur and Loretta Lynn for WBUR, link to follow.