The Independent

All the signs are that this will be another series of unmissable telly, with the episode ending on a brilliant cliffhanger.

East of Eden is a reverent, traditional adaptation of one of America’s great novels. Zoe Kazan captures the grandeur of the tale and wrestles, largely successfully, with its unruly structure.

The pair come across as a couple that genuinely like each other, for all of their tumultuous history.

Instead of bending the format to suit Nigella, the new judge bends to the will of the programme. .... They've applied her prodigious charms too thinly, and even she – with her preference for all things “sumptuous” – can’t stop the feeling that the show has gone more than a little stale.

Youth is missing the pathos of Catastrophe or the nastiness of Motherland. It feels a bit like a big American streaming service has sanded down the edges of her writing, leaving it as warm and human as ever but missing that real spark.

Slow Horses always conclude with Lamb’s mob fighting for survival like rats in a bag. The show’s devotees will eat this up, but less invested viewers might find that, after a few seasons, they crave something a bit different.

Because the cast are good and growing in confidence (some, like Ayoade Bamgboye and Hammed Animashaun get almost no screen time in this episode, though that will likely be evened out over the series), the show has legs. Yet it remains unpolished.

This final season resets proceedings. It requires them to start their courtship anew, to flirt again and remember what drew them together in the first place. It allows the show to rerun its greatest hits. Boy meets girl, traffic accident, injured dog, boy gets girl.

It is all rather safe. Engelsman and Holland clearly know each other well (the latter, a Canadian, is the most polished on-screen performer), but most of the charisma is left to Bourgeois. He might be an acquired taste (his enthusiasm for trains is either charming or irritating, depending on your cynicism levels), yet he clearly offers something distinctive.

The Gentlemen prioritises the easy gratification of vaguely witty dialogue over actual jokes, big twists over character development, and cheap thrills over earned tension. The result is a brash show that, not unlike the English aristocracy, isn’t working nearly hard enough.