President Trump’s Inauguration (BBC/ITV/Sky News) | iPlayer/itvx
Out There (ITV1) | itvx
What Happened at Auschwitz (BBC One) | iPlayer
Prime Target (Apple TV+)
The second Washington DC inauguration ceremony of Donald Trump (now 47th as well as 45th US president) was staged indoors because of sub-zero (-7) temperatures. Ironically, the venue was the Capitol building’s rotunda, one of the sites of the 2021 riots after that election result didn’t go Trump’s way.
The bad news: it fell to TV critic muggins here to flick around the channels (BBC, ITV1, Sky News) as the Donald was re-anointed. The good news: the indoor venue made for more interesting optics for viewers. Amusements included the billionaire Tech Bro Chorus (Tesla/X’s Elon Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and co) uncomfortably squashed together like tourists whose flights had been cancelled; Melania Trump’s bizarre, eyes-obscuring, My Fair Lady-meets-RoboCop hat; and Boris Johnson grovelling in the cheap seats. Priti Patel, Suella Braverman, Liz Truss and Nigel Farage were also reported to be there. How nice to know that Britain was so magnificently represented.
Eventually, Trump emerged, Stars in Their Eyes-style, through a door adorned with blue-gold drapes. Incredible, isn’t it? He’s become president twice yet still can’t get fake tan to not resemble a drying gravy stain on your gran’s second-best tablecloth. After the oath came that inauguration speech, in Trump’s signature listing tones – as though reading from the world’s slowest teleprompter while balancing on a space hopper..
Some of the braggadocio was almost funny: I involuntarily snorted at the machismo about oil (“We will drill, baby, drill”). Seated beside Bill, Hillary Clinton could be seen laughing at Trump’s plans to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. It was quite something watching Joe Biden and defeated Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris sitting stiffly throughout, like political waxworks. Second time around, though, we’re learning that it’s not funny, is it?
If you’re interested, you’ll already have read about Trump’s speech, and how he later sat in front of a baying stadium of Republican supporters while signing a multitude of executive orders. These included pardoning more than 1,500 Capitol rioters and withdrawing the US from the World Health Organization and the Paris climate agreement. (In his final minutes in the White House, President Biden pre-emptively pardoned five members of his own family to protect them from Trump reprisals.) You’ll doubtless also have read about Musk’s entirely innocent raised hand gestures, and how calling it out as a “Nazi” salute was dismissed as woke “dirty tricks”. Just as I thought, as I finally turned off Trump Inauguration: The Sequel. Absolutely nothing for anyone to worry about here…
Who’s up for taking their mind off things with new six-part ITV thriller Out There, starring Martin Clunes in mucky wellies shooting at mysterious drones with a shotgun? Clunes playing steely Welsh farmer Nathan isn’t such a major stretch if you saw him in true crime drama Manhunt (also the work of writer-director team Ed Whitmore and Marc Evans). Nathan’s French wife has died, his daughter has left home, and he lives with his teenage son, Johnny (a naturalistic performance from Louis Ashbourne Serkis, son of acting royalty Lorraine Ashbourne and Andy Serkis), who seems more invested in gaming than the thought of inheriting the farm.
By the end of last week’s first two episodes, a county lines storyline (spoiler alert) saw Johnny duped into handling parcels of drugs. Elsewhere, a tragedy engulfed a neighbouring farming family as drones buzzed overhead like giant malevolent insects.
As yet, Out There isn’t hitting the mark as the new Happy Valley. It’s overly focused on the harsh realities of farming, resulting in somewhat leaden dialogue (“A lot of arable land is being repurposed”). But there’s something raw and interesting about it: Clunes is oddly credible lumbering around in agricultural overalls, and it’s refreshing to see a drug story set in deep countryside. The plot needs to get sharper though – right now, the wheels are spinning in thick mud.
On BBC One, What Happened at Auschwitz marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, where more than one million people, most of them Jewish, were murdered between 1941 and 1945. Jordan Dunbar visited the camp and also talked to some of the dwindling numbers of survivors. Renee Salt stepped off the train at Auschwitz and her father vanished for ever. Ivor Perl’s mother told him to stand in another line, which was how he survived extermination. Dov Forman, great-grandson of the late survivor Lily Ebert, spoke about the popular TikTok account they made together explaining the Holocaust to younger generations, which attracted death threats and deniers.
Ultimately, such documentaries serve as a rebuke to the disinformation surrounding the Holocaust. Walking around the stark expanse of the camp, Dunbar seemed most shaken by the human hair on display (shorn from inmates on arrival by the SS), which he was not allowed to film, saying: “If you’ve not been here and you’ve not experienced it, I don’t think you are as afraid as you should be of where hatred could go.” This was a short, simply made programme, but there was something so sincere and dignified about Dunbar and his interviewees that it hummed with quiet power.
Steve Thompson’s Prime Target (Apple TV+) could be the eight-part thriller about maths that you’ve been waiting for. Partly set at present-day Cambridge University (cue requisite scenes of rowing and cycling), it stars Leo Woodall (One Day; White Lotus) as socially awkward genius maths student Edward, who has discovered something about prime numbers that could destroy international security.
From the start, Prime Target feels like it’s aiming to be A Beautiful Mind meshed with (Insert Generic International Conspiracy Thriller Of Your Choice). As high-level global skulduggery kicks off from Baghdad to the south of France, Edward can be found furrowing his brow, scribbling numbers on tablecloths and spouting lines such as: “Numbers are out there just waiting to be discovered like vast hidden continents.”
I slogged on, beguiled by the strong cast (David Morrissey, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Quintessa Swindell, Fra Fee, Stephen Rea), some of whom, as is typical of prestige streamer thrillers, seem to have about three scenes each. Then a sinister maths institute was slung into the mix and the glossy tedium got too much. Reader, I bailed. Some of us just can’t take the maths.
Star ratings (out of five)
President Trump’s Inauguration ★★★★
Out There ★★★
What Happened at Auschwitz ★★★★
Prime Target ★★
What else I’m watching
High Potential
(Disney+)
An unusual, diverting crime drama starring Kaitlin Olson as a chaotic single mother with an unusually high IQ who starts helping the Los Angeles police department.
Carole King and James Taylor: Just Call Out My Name
(BBC Two)
Emotive, hit-strewn concert documentary devoted to this great American singer-songwriter partnership.
The Fear Clinic: Face Your Phobia
(Channel 4)
A clinic in Amsterdam confronts people with their worst nightmare, Room 101-style, in this probing left-field series featuring balloons, mice and car travel.
