Catch up TV: The Fall, The Missing and Olive Kitteridge

So that was The Fall (BBC iPlayer). After the first run ended with an unsatisfying tease, the story has concluded with a bang and a whimper. Not, perhaps, the bang that the story suggested was coming. And not the whimper either.

Still, it was a strange beast. At times, Allan Cubitt’s serial thriller was Basic Instinct crossed with Cracker, with the Robbie Coltrane role occupied by Gillian Anderson and Sharon Stone played by Jamie Dornan. It was a romance in which the narcissistic cop, Stella (Anderson) was mirrored by the killer Spector (Jamie Dornan). Stella was the star, and Spector was the spectre.

The Cracker bit was the sense that tough crimes can only be solved by people who inhabit the dirty emotions of criminals, and the drama which unfurls is a cat and mouse game in which the kitten and the rodent are happy to switch places. Tom, meet Jerry. Jerry, eat Tom.

There were several other tropes in play. The spectral Spector’s transgressions were mobile-device crimes, splicing into a kind of Sex, Lies and Videotape for the digital era, with further opportunities for voyeurism provided by Skype and video-phones and cameras inside interrogation rooms; all of them combining to make a comment, of sorts, about pornography, and privacy, and voyeurism. It’s now a cliché of crime dramas that the criminal must smash up his mobile or throw it in a river, because miscreants — despite their mastery of murdering and stuff — haven’t worked out how to change a SIM card.

Spector the spectre had some pretensions, and a dangerous amount of education, so he was able to blah on about existentialism, which seems a bit out of synch for a man of his age, but his real talent was his ability to peel a tangerine in one go, leaving the skin in an unbroken loop (the true sign of a psychopath).

Similarly, it seems plausible to suggest that the show’s creator Cubitt has seen a couple of Michael Haneke films, and maybe the interrogation sequence in Steve McQueen’s Bobby Sands drama Hunger, because the energy of The Fall’s feature-length finale had Stella and Spector playing light and shade in a game of serial killer speed dating, with both of them employing sexual charisma as a mask for their insecurities.

Stella had the advantage, though, as she was able to dress up for the role, sporting figure-hugging scarlet knitwear, while Spector had to make do with criminal-issue clothes. There are people who will tell you that the success of The Fall was all down to Stella’s silky blouses, which added a sense of ruthless power to her mode of speech, all whispery and suggestive, like Margaret Thatcher voicing a satnav. The silk blouse advocates are women. The red jumper was a man-killer.

Which leaves sex and violence. The Fall was about both, and the blurry area where they meet. It was a visual orgy, really. Anderson was lovely, so was Dornan. And (this is the Haneke bit), The Fall mixed pleasure with guilt, sneakily confronting the audience with the fact that watching beautiful people do bad things is a gas.

The Missing (BBC iPlayer) is over too, though the gleam in James Nesbitt’s eye suggests that his emotional Terminator could return. The conclusion was convoluted and horribly dark, but it did feature a heartbreaking speech from Emily (Frances O’Connor).

Was it worth it? Certainly, it was a serviceable thriller with strong characters, but the hijacking of the Madeleine McCann story at the start wasn’t justified by what came later.

Serial box

Being broadcast in two chunks on Sky Atlantic limited the audience for Olive Kitteridge (Sky On Demand) but it really is one of the best things on television this year. Directed by Lisa Cholodenko and written by Jane Anderson from Elizabeth Strout’s novel, the HBO drama presented four chapters in the life of a retired teacher in Maine (a towering performance from Frances McDormand, pictured).

Essentially, Olive’s life is a suicide postponed, so there’s a fair bit of depression, and mentions of the word “happiness” are met with a vinegary grimace. But McDormand and Six Feet Under’s dead dad Richard Jenkins bring sly humanity and dark humour to the tale. The opening scene looks like a reference to Groundhog Day. The final chapter stars Bill Murray. It’s fantastic all the way through.