Watch this space

Continuing my trip down The Guardian's Top 50 TV Shows of 2022.  

#40 : Maryland

You could feel the rage thunder out of playwright Lucy Kirkwood’s script, written during lockdown in response to the murders of women – and yet it remained so articulate, so concise in its message. Zawe Ashton and Hayley Squires were brilliantly cast as the two Marys who go to the police to report the man who attacked them both. Unsurprisingly to most female viewers, the story of what they go through made for an incredibly searing 25 minutes of television. Women are so often told not to get angry, but this served as a reminder that we have every damn right and reason to be.


This sounds quite good, doesn't it?  And only 25 minutes - bonus!  So I was looking forward to it - but...

...despite it being a BBC thang, it's no longer available on iPlayer.  This is probably because it started life as a play, so there are probably interesting rights issues, but it's a shame because it got great write-ups and was described as essential viewing for both women and men, with excellent performances from Zawe Ashton and Hayley Squires (I must confess to having missed everything she's been in so far, and the streak continues).

I'll keep an eye out for it and hopefully catch it sometime, but in the meantime I fear we must mark this one down as unwatchable.

#38 - I just didn't care
#42 - A very enjoyable series


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