F or about a year now I’ve felt a big change in TV dramas: a kind of thinning out. Shows used always to be huge, rich, ensemble set pieces packed with originality and plot. Now, if you’re lucky, you’ll get one A-listerdrowned in expensive-looking costumes, locations, accessories, sets, all stretched out across ten echoing episodes.
Why do you need ten episodes of anything? It cannot last. Take Sky’s big new show The Day of the Jackal , in which Eddie Redmayne plays Frederick Forsyth’s silent blond assassin. The book (1971) is 400 pages; the film (1973) is just over two hours.
The 2024 TV adaptation, by contrast, is ten whole hours of luxury cars, high-end watches, expensive chess sets, guns, stupid bombs, railway stations, airports, moody.