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"As a physicist, I know that the external world dictates the way time flows," said Professor Michio Kaku in the first episode of Time, a promisingly abstruse series for BBC4. Professor Kaku can think in at least 13 more dimensions than me, but he should know that television reviewers are privy to this knowledge, too. You watch some programmes and the minutes stretch to hours, while others barely seem to have begun before the final credits are rolling. And some mysteriously do both, replacing the mechanical clockwork pulse of schedule time with something audaciously different.
Gideon's Daughter, Stephen Poliakoff's drama, was a case in point. "Shouldn't you be getting on with it?" you found yourself thinking, as the narrative ambled on its way. "Do you have no idea of how precious time is?" And yet it is the slow-burn of Poliakoff's dramas that arrest your attention. He can bore you and intrigue you at the same time, and given that most television hyperventilates at the thought of a pensive lull,...