Crossfire

Crossfire isn’t your typical ‘stripped across the weeknight’ drama. It can be harrowing and heart-wrenching and it asks you to consider all kinds of impossible questions about instinct, vengeance and self-sacrifice. But its intensity, anchored by Hawes’ brilliantly resilient performance, never fails to transfix.

This is a taut and airless show that knows exactly how to build tension effectively (and stressfully). More importantly, its capable ensemble cast do well to establish distinct characters each experiencing their own individual nightmares – and inevitably prompt viewers to ponder how they might respond to this one.

It is awful to watch, for two main reasons. Reason one: this is horrible, stressful television. ... On top of this, the plot requires some of the characters to do very silly things. ... Which brings us to reason two for Crossfire being a misfire: the characters, who are trapped in a drippy soap opera.

The mere presence of Hawes orientates viewers. In an unreliable world, she is a reliable constant. But her need for better scripts is now reaching crisis point, because even in a project in which dozens of tourists are being murdered, the waste of her talent is the biggest tragedy.

If you are suffering from a tension pneumothorax yourself and can’t reach the remote control, or if you are a great devotee of the game Who’s Marked Next For Death?, it’s an OK watch. For the rest of us, there’s lots of other stuff to be getting on with, I’ll bet.

Crossfire starts off giving its viewers some real-life anxiety and then starts to squander that tension almost immediately. To be honest, it’s bad enough we see stories like this on the news; we don’t need to see it as entertainment at this point.