Summer of Rockets

Mr P has toned down his usual artificiality, created a time and place that more or less convinces and put together an exciting plot with a real dénouement. He deserves kudos for managing all this after many years of not doing so. Perhaps all the BBC money they have thrown in his direction has started to pay off at last. Toby Stephens is excellent, as is Keeley Hawes (as usual). Everyone else is good too and little Toby Woolf is a delight. There are faults. Yes, there is a coherent dénouement but it's not without clichés (one particularly egregious one involving guns) and some sickly sweetness. Adrian Edmondson's TV shows are embarrassingly unfunny. The subplots, while interesting, are in fact superfluous. There is the one about the missing son, which is included, I guess,to give Keeley Hawes and Clare Bloom things to do. The daughter's daft scenes at Buckingham Palace and the expensive ball with hordes of debs are also of only tangential relevance.

Poliakoff again! A very frustrating writer/director. Production values high... But... As usual... Unconvincing characters, stilted dialogue, and constant creation and maintenance of tension over inconsequential issues. How does he get work!?

This series had so much potential but the ending was ridiculous and the explanations to various events (such as the missing son) were completely unbelievable. Such a shame as the story was excellent up until the end and the actors and setting were wonderful but all was ruined by the bizarre ending.

Anything starring Keeley Hawes is going to be worth watching and this little drama is no exception. It's a fun bit of nonsense - very reminiscent of an episode of The Avengers from the late sixties - but far more elaborate. As usual with the BBC, the sub-plots hammer every politically correct stereotype going. The villains are all white, middle-aged, middle class males, the heroes are all either from a minority group or disabled. Of course, the police are racist and the young white men (except for the gay man and the vegetarian) are violent boors. Even the poor little debutantes get a drubbing. All boringly predictable - but it was fun seeing Lily Sacofsky giving one of the nasty young men a taste of her knee! To be fair though, I did enjoy this drama and would recommend it as a lightweight bit of entertainment.

I give this series two stars for good production values in costume and scenery design. In every other aspect it is dreadful Toby Stevens constant overacting worked ok in the cartoonish Black Sails, but has failed in everything else. The plot of summer of rockers is unengaging, and frankly juvenile. Lastly the heavy and forced political correctness puts the final nail in this mess.