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After The Flood is a new ITV drama which sees… a lot of rain pelting down, which means they must be filming in Manchester.
Actually, this broadcast is surprisingly good timing, since in a number of areas in the UK, we’ve had this happen, thanks to Storm Henk, which came long the jetstream, and this is NOT a ‘climate change’ issue, so you can stop believing what you read in the Daily Mail, right now.
This review will go live after the first episode has aired, so it’s also incredible timing that near a bridge, there’s a woman trapped in her car with a small child, and pretty much the exact same thing happened courtesy of Liam Stych, in Birmingham.
I’ve only seen the opener, but the crux of the storyline, amongst a number of dea -ths that PC Joanna Marshall (Sophie Rundle – The Midnight Sky) is bound to come across, one man has apparently bought the farm in a flooded lift… or did he die 3 days earlier, thus before the flood? She spends an awful lot of time worrying about this, rather than getting on with being a typical beat bobby, and gets far too involved, as if she’s in CSI: Floodsville.
But whereas there may be promise in the premise, it’s not long before the programme falls into lazy cliches, such as the fact that she should be taking it particularly easy because she’s pregnant (and seems to be about four months further on by the end of the episode, than she was at the start of the hour), plus there’s a baddie on the run during the flood, in the form of Jonas Armstrong (Floodlights). And we know it’s Jonas Armstrong because we see Jonas Armstrong’s face. And only Jonas Armstrong looks like Jonas Armstrong.
The other is when a male colleague lets her use his PC to send an email – following some lame excuse she gives about not having her laptop with her, when everyone knows in any such security-based job, that you do NOT let anyone use your own PC, as your smartcard will be tied to you! They’ll have had training about this!! It’s similarly-dumb as that on today’s Apple TV+ release, Criminal Record, as you can see from my review. Plus, you can’t just plug in a random USB stick and expect to be able to copy files to it, as there’ll be security processes stopping that.
Oh, and then she broke the law even more before the episode was out, again! What’s wrong with writer Mick Ford?! And how come this script simply wasn’t flushed away down the toilet? I will try a second episode, but he’s got a lot of unclogging to do!
UPDATE: I watched episode 2 on ITVX and it was even more ridiculous. Joanna would’ve been sacked for gross negligence at least another 10 times. Whoever was the police procedural consultant on this should be thrown into the sea!
After The Flood continues next Wednesday on ITV at 9pm. The whole series is now available to watch on ITVX. It’s not yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD.
Director: Azhur Saleem
Producer: Juliet Charlesworth
Creator/Writer: Mick Ford
Music: Blair Mowat
Cast:
PC Joanna Marshall: Sophie Rundle
Jack Radcliffe: Philip Glenister
Molly: Lorraine Ashbourne
Pat: Matt Stokoe
Lee: Jonas Armstrong
Sarah Mackie: Jacqueline Botswain
Sergeant Phil Mackie: Nicholas Gleaves
Mr. Allen: Ray Castleton
Daniel Eden: Arthur McBain
Emma: Amy Forrest
Tasha Eden: Anita Adam Gabay
Keith: George Bukhari
Simon Boxer: Chris Kaye
PC Gibson: Gary Hanks
Deepa Das: Tripti Tripuraneni
Amy: Jeanette Percival
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.