Ben Dowell

An uncomfortable watch for us men. But such is this drama’s relentless, mesmerising power, it is impossible to avert your gaze.

This is mainly just a heart-thumping ride, defiantly undemanding but enjoyably brainless fun.

Netflix may want us to feel Laura’s struggles but she’s slightly lost in this account, which seems more keen to see her life through the eyes of a liberal arts college professor in 2026. This Prairie pulls its punches.

While the sketches in Life, Larry, and the Pursuit of Unhappiness sound great on paper, many feel a little tame in the execution. One problem is the format. .... It all feels too tightly scripted.

It's not faultless. There are obviously no contemporary photographs (a familiar Burns tool) so the visuals are mainly an array of drawings, paintings and etchings that could do with some labelling. And while I liked the restrained use of live reconstructions that sparingly use often wintry landscapes to convey mood perfectly, at times the stirring music and rhetoric about "the noblest aspirations of humankind" gets a bit much. But it works superbly when it gets into the weeds of the story.

You really believe in this tiny place, even if there are more deceptions and sexual secrets here than in a medium-sized metropolis. This sure-footed, compelling show could well have you on the ridge of your seat.

It tries its best, even giving Rhaenyra a speech about having the “weak and feeble body of a woman”, which borrows almost word for word from Elizabeth I’s famous address at Tilbury before the Spanish Armada arrived. But this points to an essential difficulty I have with this show: all too often it feels so old hat, so reheated and, well, so, so boring.

There isn’t anything to truly despise about this nostalgia fest of young love, blanket-wrapped heart-to-hearts, sunlit skies and lakeside swims that are really just excuses for many close-ups of Charlie (Michael Bradway) and Sam’s torsos. But, fairly faithfully adapted from Carley Fortune’s 2022 novel Every Summer After, this Prime Video series does feel cynical.

Thankfully, the series does not recreate the killing or show its aftermath, but does effectively reveal the morass of horrors inflicted on this family. .... The middle part of the drama inevitably becomes bogged down by the complexities of the investigation.

While there are moments when you feel he is winging it, Clarkson winging it is still deliciously funny, such as when he settles down for a healthy dairy-based breakfast and rails against eating “knob cheese”.