PARADOX 1.2

[SPOILERS] I'm not sure Paradox is conducive to weekly reviews, as episodes are almost exclusively plot-driven and there's not much opportunity to explore the thinly-drawn characters. This is just an hour spent watching four people solve a life-or-death puzzle against the clock; decent entertainment if the puzzle's worth the effort, but there's not much to say beyond that.

In episode 2, the Prometheus II satellite has downloaded another eight images of an impending disaster -- including a manhole cover, a pigeon, a drowned teenager, a dirty car registration plate, and the dead body of DS Holt (Mark Bonnar) himself! The MoD authorities decide to keep Holt's image a secret, and DI Flint's (Tamzin Outhwaite) team are called back to solve this latest mystery. And so begins another episode of reverse-Casualty, pretty much. It helps that there's fun to be had in seeing how the disaster comes together, even if the audience are given more information because we actually spend some time with the key players headed for catastrophe (here, an asthmatic child-abductor and pigeon fancier.)

The thing is, so much time and energy is spent on the plot there's not much time for anything else. You can't get invested in the characters (the investigative team or the victims) because neither get much screentime that isn’t focused on the fact there's a ticking clock of doom hanging over their heads. 24 deals with a similar problem by only having one overall threat to tackle over a whole year, so it has opportunities to spend on developing the people involved in the situation. In fact, I had originally assumed Paradox was going to cover one big disaster told over five episodes, which may have been a better way to go. Instead, each hour is entirely consumed by preventing that week's terrible future, so don't expect much acting beyond stern faces, skeptical rants, and unnecessary brooding or bickering.

Still, this was better than last week's premiere, mainly because the threat was less predictable and everyone acted fairly logically as they tried to prevent the future. It also helped that part of the threat was the life of Holt himself, even if he was kept in the dark about that fact. The combination of swelling pace and a thumping soundtrack did a great job of making the last ten minutes tense and exciting, too. But there are some general concerns that tarnish successes; from the fact it makes little sense Flint's team are on their own (when the validity of the photos has been proven), the pointlessness of those hard-faced MoD civil servants (seriously, what are they there for?), the team's sometimes irritating frostiness around each other, and King's penchant for skulking around and being cryptic about his theories.

Overall, there are only three episodes left, so it's no big commitment to stick with Paradox till the end. It doesn't bore me, which is the main thing. But this episode has already lost 1 million viewers (down to 2.94m from 4.13m), so it's clearly boring other people.


1 December 2009
BBC1/BBC HD, 9pm

written by: Lizzie Mickery directed by: Simon Cellan Jones starring: Tamzin Outhwaite (DI Rebecca Flint), Emun Elliott (Dr. Christian King), Mark Bonnar (DS Ben Holt), Chike Okonkwo (DC Callum Gada), Lee Worswick (Jack Barclay), Hannah Godfrey (Michelle Barclay), David Crellin (Don Barclay), Jennifer Hennessy (Shelley Barclay), Abigail Davies (Amelia James), Lorcan Cranitch (Simon Manning), Adam Foster (DC Rob Ritchie), Chris Finch (Danny Simpson), Asha Kingsley (WPC), Dominic Gately (Fireman) & Justine Adams (Woman)