The criss-crossing timelines gradually show how all these personal lives evolved over time, and it really does keep you hooked. Loading in such familial emotion is pretty nimble writing.
Being Ritchie, all this rollicks along, high on its own reimagining — and hats off to the natty suits — but at eight episodes it’s somewhat overstuffed. Things are so much more compelling in the smaller moments.
As the couple repeatedly state their love for each other, fall out and make up over nine — yes, nine — episodes, their relationship does start to feel like an “endless saga” (one character actually yells this).
Clearly, this quasi-celebrity vehicle is some way from David Attenborough or Michael Palin (who had his own series of the same name), but I warmed to Smith’s enthusiasm.
When it’s hitting full stride — in those boxing bouts or with the delicious twist to the Forty Elephants’ central con — A Thousand Blows really is knockout stuff, punching hard, the main event.
The genre is no longer a boys’ club but what’s even fresher in The Abandons is the theme of motherhood. Constance and Fiona run their families with a strong hand, their protectiveness a hair away from lunacy.
This show still works for having confidence in its restrained approach — there’s no need to be flashy. Ashley Jensen’s down-to-earth DI, Ruth Calder, remains a decent enough replacement for Douglas Henshall’s DI Jimmy Perez, and if Calder and Tosh don’t quite have the sparring crackle of the best detective duos, they showed a modicum of chemistry while teasing the new boss, who is struggling with his long-distance relationship.
It’s the sort of situation that could be the premise for a satire in the vein of The Death of Stalin although, rather than approaching farce, the streak of humour here is applied deftly.
