Marchlands (2011)

One of the best series I've watched this year was on ITV1 - my world is spinning on its axis. Since I'm a bit of a cultural snob, I generally find most programmes the channel puts out pretty terrible and lowest-common-denominator. So I was intrigued by Marchlands mainly by the interesting cast, which included Tessa Peake-Jones, Anne Reid, Alex Kingston, Denis Lawson, Jodie Whittaker and Dean Andrews - none of whom are 'TV a-listers' but all bring something special to a role. 

Marchlands' central conceit was telling a story in the same house of the title, set across 1968, 1987 and 2010, with three different families caught up in the story of Alice, a little girl who drowned in 1968. The earlier segments dealt with the aftermath of the death and her mother Ruth's refusal to believe that she simply ran off and drowned. In the eighties, my favourite segments with Kingston and Andrews, were a little lighter in tone - although filmed with a warm glow in comparison to the stark 2010 scenes - and involved the couple's young daughter making friends with Alice's ghost. Then in 2010 a young couple move into the house, with the woman pregnant and experiencing odd poltergeist-type activity, the husband grew up in the area, and Ruth returns to find out once and for all what happened to Alice.

It's a concept that could have been really hard to follow and episodic, but in the hands of some great writers and directors, not to mention editors, the whole flowed really well. Although the ultimate resolution to the story after 5 episodes was a little humdrum for my liking, the journey to get there provided an effective, creepy thriller, with excellent character work and some genuine jumpy-bits. I liked the way the scene would have the characters eating breakfast in 1968 and then seamlessly move into a similar scene in 1987 and 2010. It was all pulled off so effectively that I found myself wondering at how intricate the writing and the filming must have been. A little self-containe gem this.