Neil Armstrong

The scary monsters and the action thrills are there but so are the more important components – bags of charm, humour, characters you want to hang out with and quieter moments.

Some viewers who start this will find themselves sufficiently invested to see it through to the end. But there will certainly be others – like me – who think The Beast In Me should have been put out of its misery long before it made it to Netflix.

The first episode of the new series suggests we’re in for another darkly comic thrill ride as good as any of the previous outings.

Brown is solid as a husband and father trying to be better and so is Marsay as a wife who wants more. The reason for Keegan’s glamorous nurse being in Australia is convincing, the methods she uses to achieve her aims less so.

It’s one of the best shows of the year.

If the script isn’t always the sharpest – “parenthood is a journey like no other,” Attenborough says at one point – it really doesn’t matter when the visuals are this good.

Her [Vicky McClure's] performance is expectedly fine, I suppose, but much of the material that she and the rest of the cast are working with is – excuse the pun – tired.

Stick is not a “set-up, joke, set-up, joke” gag-fest; its gentle situational humour will leave you with a smile on your face rather than rolling in the aisles.

If a drama about an unlikable person is to be compelling, the character has to be interesting – funny or evil or intriguingly complex, for example. Ed is just an affectless bore and an affectless bore in jeopardy does not make for gripping television.

In the first season, momentum built slowly until the final three episodes took off like a rocket. Again, this season takes its time until – whoosh! Does this finale top the first one? Not quite. But it does top just about everything else on TV. I can’t stop thinking about it.