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Gideon's Daughter
BBC1, 9.00pm
Time
BBC Four 8.00pm
STEPHEN Poliakoff's reputation in British TV is more or less unassailable. Funnily enough, however, I wouldn't always say the same about the writer-director's lauded dramas.
Gideon's Daughter was a case in point. At a guess, only Poliakoff's credibility ensured that BBC1 found itself with a one- hour-and-45-minute slab of script. The piece could have survived easily at 75 minutes. What we got, not for the first time, was a ponderous bit of work trying to be deep and enigmatic.
Here was Bill Nighy looking languid and worldweary. Here was Miranda Richardson, the sparky, unlikely love interest in the all- night convenience store, trying to cope with her grief for her dead son. Clearly, Gideon (Nighy), the mighty PR consultant busy deciding that his life was hollow, was destined for a relationship with Stella (Richardson).
It all felt a little contrived. You need a character to demonstrate that the glittering worlds of media and politics are shams? The public relations industry long ago made the transition from dramatic metaphor to cliche.