Cat Burglar (Netflix)
Suspicion (Apple TV+)
The Fear Index (Sky Atlantic)
We Are Black and British (BBC Two) | iPlayer
You don’t expect to be dispatched to the existential abyss by an interactive cartoon. Watching/playing Netflix’s latest TV-gaming hybrid, Cat Burglar, a Looney Tunes homage from Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker, can take around 15 minutes or all eternity, depending on how old, slow and thick you are. While the quiz-type questions are easy, I appear to possess the lightning gaming reflexes of a stumbling carthorse. Jabbing pathetically at the TV remote, I keep answering too slowly and getting tossed back to the start, taking another of the myriad routes through the cartoon. Which doesn’t surprise me: I also struggled with Brooker’s 2018 Netflix interactive offering, the dark, convoluted Bandersnatch. Sorry, interactive TV, it’s not you, it’s me.
The first outing since Brooker and Annabel Jones signed their new multi-kazillion Netflix deal, Cat Burglar is a classic cut of a cartoon in the Tex Avery/Chuck Jones/Hanna-Barbera tradition, which spawned Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and many more. Involving some of the team behind Netflix’s BoJack Horseman, the result is a period-piece animation curio with a modern gaming tweak. A cat called Rowdy (think: Top Cat with a dark side) must evade security guard Peanut (a canine Officer Dibble) to steal art from a museum. From there, it’s an evocative whirl around vintage cartoonery: eyes jut on stalks, telephone wires become tightropes, bras double as parachutes. When Rowdy dies, he glides up to heaven with angel wings and a halo.
As we’ve established, interactive is not my bag. I’m: “My eyes are open, aren’t they? There’s your interaction right there.” Even so, more than Bandersnatch, Cat Burglar feels more game than television. Unlike The Simpsons’ Itchy and Scratchy, it’s not edgy, an ultra-violent bloodbath spoof; it doesn’t try to “say” anything. But it is exquisitely executed. The look, sound, colours, set pieces, music, tone et al are spot-on, capturing the artistry, imagination and surreal silliness of the gilded era of US animation. I might have the thumb skills of a decomposing corpse, but I recognise a labour of love when I see one.
I wish Apple TV+’s eight-part thriller Suspicion were interactive: I could lob in a stick of cartoon dynamite and put it out of its misery. Originally an Israeli series, developed by Rob Williams, part-directed by Chris Long (The Americans), it starts with the abduction of the son of a prominent businesswoman in a plush New York hotel by kidnappers disguised in British royal family masks. Notably, there’s no Prince Andrew mask; presumably the kidnapper in that disguise was enjoying a pizza in Woking at the time of the abduction.
Now four episodes in, Suspicion’s premise is that the kidnappers could be a group of random Britons: including an academic (Elizabeth Henstridge), a cybersecurity expert (Kunal Nayyar), a finance adviser (Georgina Campbell) and a ruthless mercenary (Elyes Gabel). Noah Emmerich and Angel Coulby portray the National Crime Agency/FBI agents hunting them, and at least they show up. Uma Thurman, playing the uber-alpha corporate mother of the abducted youth, and supposedly the “star” of Suspicion, barely features, especially in the opening episodes. Did her character have somewhere more important to be? Going by her distractingly drab styling – muddy-hued gowns skimming the floor – is this supposed to be an avant-garde production of The Crucible?
Having watched the whole thing, Emmerich and Coulby manage to emerge with their acting dignity intact, despite being saddled with a “mismatched duo” cliche. Tom Rhys Harries is also good as an enigmatic student. Elsewhere, Suspicion is undone by erratic drama and nonsensical themes. The CCTV footage of the kidnapping goes viral, sparking a mass campaign for Thurman’s character to “tell the truth!”, but it’s not clear who wants her to. As the suspects endlessly trudge around, all sense of threat is lost, until, ruinously, it starts feeling like an overlong crime caper without jokes.
In Sky Atlantic’s The Fear Index, a four-part adaptation of the 2011 Robert Harris novel, co-scripted by Harris, directed by David Caffrey, Josh Hartnett (The Virgin Suicides; Pearl Harbor) plays business genius Dr Alex Hoffman, who has developed an algorithm that detects fear in the stock market. After a series of disturbing events, including a violent break-in at his Geneva mansion, Hoffman wonders if he’s being set up.
Essentially – spoiler alert – The Fear Index is one of those fables about humankind’s uneasy relationship with artificial intelligence, which authors from Kazuo Ishiguro to Ian McEwan love to sink their teeth into. Harris’s interpretation unfolds as a big stakes financial horror story, a FTSE 100-themed replay of Frankenstein’s monster, in which Hoffman’s sanity is called into question.
Thematically, it feels somewhat dusty; certainly, it proves that it’s hard to visually convey the real or imagined threat of computers that even at their most ominous resemble gigantic petrol station cashpoints. However, Hartnett, a more versatile actor than he’s given credit for, commits to the writhing hyper-anxiety of a man who can’t trust anything or anyone, including himself, while Grégory Montel (Gabriel in Call My Agent!) steals scenes as a Columbo-like detective. This is a solid prestige production that knows how to work the smoke and mirrors.
I’m not sure what I expected from the BBC Two two-part discussion documentary We Are Black and British, produced by Becky Clarke; probably a debate on the shared Black experience with everybody agreeing on important points – racism, schools, police, “white skin privileges”, sexuality. But, wow, was I wrong.
Holed up in the Cotswolds, the participants were an articulate, disparate group. Dominique, who doesn’t think that racism is the answer to every problem; Kehinde, a radical university professor; Mista Strange, a gay rapper; Michelle, whose son was subjected to an unjust police stop and search; Raphael, who feels pressure to date within his race; and Lin, whose mixed-race heritage resulted in racism from family members.
My sole criticism is the age range: where are the seniors? Otherwise, these are lively, passionate programmes, where everyone has something to say and questions to pose, while giving one another the space to respectfully disagree. Westminster, take note.
What else I’m watching…
Kate Garraway: Caring for Derek
(ITV)
A follow-up to the Bafta-winning Finding Derek, Kate Garraway brings her Covid-afflicted husband, Derek Draper, home from hospital. Never mind the messy sideboards (which caused online uproar last time) – this is a candid look at a gruelling caring situation.
Downfall: The Case Against Boeing
(Netflix)
Rory Kennedy’s shocking feature-length documentary investigates the Boeing aircraft disasters in Indonesia (October 2018) and Ethiopia (March 2019) that exposed how the airline put profit before safety.
One of Us Is Lying
(Netflix)
A hit adaptation of the Karen M McManus novel. Four teenagers are present when a loathed school gossipmonger succumbs to a fatal allergic reaction. A strangely compelling whodunnit: Gossip Girl meets I Know What You Did Last Summer.
