Catch Up TV: The Affair, Catastrophe, Matt Berry Does Ghosts (Oct 30)

Alastair McKay chooses the best TV shows now available to watch on catch-up
'It just got better': The Affair sustains itself in Season 2
Alastair McKay30 October 2015

Emotionally, The Affair (Sky On Demand) is a car crash, viewed through a mask of fingers to a soundtrack of fingernails scratching down a blackboard.

It is also a murder mystery, or an investigation into a road accident in which a car failed to stop. There is a detective, who operates as a moral interlocutor, keeping things straight-ish. And there is a marriage, collapsing as a man and woman choose to focus on their incompatibility rather than their love.

That’s a lot of potatoes to fit into one pot, and there were signs towards the end of the first series that the story was going off the boil. The early episodes, in which Noah (Dominic West) and Alison (Ruth Wilson) fell into a clandestine relationship, were compelling and discomfiting.

As the story developed, and waitress Ruth was revealed to be a drug dealer from a family of nogoodniks, the murder mystery was foregrounded, and it was hard to see how the show could sustain another series. After drugs and guns, how much more punishment could the philandering dolt Noah endure?

The answer is: quite a lot. The second series reframes events. It does this in the first instance by reminding us that The Affair is a story about stories, lies and events viewed from the (warped) perspectives of the characters. Noah, after all, is a novelist, whose questionable skill at making things up is at the root of events. The novel he is writing is oddly similar to his own experience, though we are never quite sure what that is.

Episodes of The Affair are split in two, and the events differ depending on who is describing them. So here’s Noah talking to his editor about the last chapter of his book, in which he has changed the ending to something less dramatic. Noah calls it “two people sitting down to dinner with an unimaginable secret between them”. The editor is unimpressed and suggests he thinks again and reinstates the murder.

We can, I think, allow the creators of The Affair their little joke. They too have moved on from the suggested ending of the first series. The show now comes from more viewpoints. Series two, episode one gives us a ringside seat at Noah and Helen’s divorce negotiations. They see things differently, as you’d expect, though Noah lies about his ongoing relationship with Alison in both tellings. Helen’s viewpoint is nuanced. She has a new man, more suited to her class but comically unengaging in bed. And there’s more than a hint that she hasn’t given up on Noah… Oh, just watch it. Richard Schiff turns up at the end as a no-nonsense lawyer. Yes, Toby Ziegler from The West Wing. The Affair was good. It just got better.

Best TV dramas 2015 - in pictures

1/9

The brilliance of Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney’s comedy Catastrophe (All 4) is that it seems extreme but is actually realistic. The first series investigated an accidental relationship, the second settles down into traditional sitcom territory, being a beautifully fatalistic examination of married life. In the age of Gogglebox, where television eats itself, the opening lines are bold, yet familiar. “Why are we watching this?” asks Rob. “Because Mad Men’s finished, Game of Thrones isn’t back on yet, and there’s nothing else,” Sharon replies.

“Let’s watch that, then,” says Rob. “Let’s watch nothing else.”

Watch Catastrophe. It’s brilliant, and like nothing else.

And finally, Matt Berry Does … Ghosts (BBC iPlayer) is the funniest television programme you’ll hear this week. It is television reinvented as a joke about voiceovers, nominally exploring the notion that ghosts are real — and they come from the sea.

Follow Alastair McKay on Twitter: @AHMcKay

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