There She Goes Series 1 – The DVDfever Review – David Tennant

There She Goes is a new comedy/drama which is based on a true story, which shines a light on the highs and lows of raising a daughter with a severe learning disability.

I was drawn to this from the re-pairing of David Tennant (Bad Samaritan) and Jessica Hynes (W1A, Twenty Twelve) (Hey, Tennant & Hynes sounds like a detective duo!) worked so well together in Doctor Who, both in 2007 and again in 2010, so it’s great to see them back together for this.

Based around Rosie (Miley Locke), a nine-year-old girl who has a learning disability and can’t speak, the drama switches between the ‘present day’ of 2015, and the year 2006 when she was born.

Interestingly, The Thin Blue Line‘s Serena Evans plays Hynes’ mum, despite only being 13 years older than her… but remember Harrison Ford and Sean Connery playing child and parent in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? There was only 12 years between them. No snakes in this one, though.

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There’s also an occasional bit of off-the-cuff dark humour such as when discussing history – and since Rosie has an obsession with the letter X, Simon says, “What if Malcolm X was just signing off his letters as ‘Malcolm’ but being really friendly?”, as well as pseudo-threatening son Ben that he’s going to “go into your Minecraft village and burn it all down”.

And what father doesn’t want to her, “Simon? Rosie’s hidden another poo!”

I can solve the problem of Rosie banging the door into the wall, though, which is surely to put something behind it, so the door knob doesn’t reach the wall.

There She Goes is based on the real-life experience of writer/creator Shaun Pye, whose daughter was born with an extremely rare and undiagnosed chromosomal disorder, and the first episode certainly gets it off to a good start.

If you’re unsure after the first episode, then so far, I’ve watched three of the five in the series, and all I’ll say is that however you feel after one episode, your opinion will not change after watching more.

People of a certain age will realise the title is derived from the song by ’90s one-hit wonders The La’s. They had a great (non-charting) follow-up with Timeless Melody, but I always felt this titular song is more tuneless, and the show uses a tone-deaf cover version by Sixpence None The Richer, who are also best known as being one-hit wonders in the ’90s, with Kiss Me.

There She Goes continues next Tuesday on BBC4 at 10pm, but it’s not yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD.

If you missed any episodes broadcast, check out the BBC iPlayer.

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There She Goes – Series Trailer – BBC One

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Episode 1 Score: 7/10
Episode 2 Score: 7/10
Episode 3 Score: 7/10

Director: Simon Hynd
Producer: Clelia Mountford
Executive Producers: Sharon Horgan, Clelia Mountford, Alex Moody
Creator/Writer: Shaun Pye

Simon: David Tennant
Emily: Jessica Hynes
Rosie: Miley Locke
Ben: Edan Hayhurst
Helen: Yasmine Akram
Chris: Ben Willbond
Barney: Justin Edwards
Grandma: Serena Evans
Young Ben: Oliver Gibbs
Ellie: Sophia Johnson
Midwifes: Charlie Coletta, Rebecca Deren

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Previously on DVDfever:

October 15th:

There She Goes is a new comedy/drama which is based on a true story, which shines a light on the highs and lows of raising a daughter with a severe learning disability.

Rosie (Miley Locke) is a nine-year-old girl with a learning disability who lives with her dad Simon (David Tennant), mum Emily (Jessica Hynes) and brother Ben (Edan Hayhurst).

In episode one, it’s a typical Saturday for the family, starting with an attempt to get Rosie to the park for some fresh air. She refuses to cooperate, and afterwards she’s similarly uncooperative with her dinner. As Simon and Emily are later distracted, Rosie causes carnage in the kitchen.

Tennant and Hynes (sounds like a detective duo!) worked so well together in Doctor Who, both in 2007 and again in 2010, so it’s great to see them back together for this.

There She Goes looks like it’d make a decent early evening BBC1 drama, but it’s been shoved onto BBC4 at 10pm for some reason, and starts tomorrow.

Check out the trailer below.