This City Is Ours: A Crime Family Saga

Of course this show isn’t as good as The Sopranos, so let’s dispense with that comparison. But it’s cracking. I binged all eight episodes in two days, and I’m not a big fan of dramas about drugs and guns.

TCIO is nowhere near as good as The Sopranos (what is?), but it’s still a cut above the ordinary.

There are too many “gritty” drugs gang dramas on TV these days but what makes a refreshing change about this one is that it is modern, witty and authentic, especially the writer Stephen Butchard’s dialogue.

While the conflicted emotional openness of Liverpudlian gangster Michael Kavanagh (James Nelson-Joyce) isn’t the dominant theme of the BBC’s gripping new Sunday night thriller This City is Ours, it is a distinct subplot.

This City is Ours features a few wrinkles in its setting and approach that set it apart from the many, many similarly sprawling family crime dramas. We’ll stick with it and see what an impressively deep cast can bring to the story, which features a lot of other elements that strike us as pretty familiar.

It is entertaining enough. But it feels too much like too many things we have seen before. Michael, despite Nelson-Joyce’s best efforts, remains an underwritten cipher and there is no one to root truly for or against. Liverpool and Spain look nice, though.

Bean gives it his all as the merciless head of the family – nobody growls quite as menacingly as the former Ned Stark, and he is reliably sinister throughout. But, with its dreary script and inane plot, This City Is Ours ultimately makes an offer that is all too easy to refuse.