Hard Sun, episode 2 review: this show is ludicrous... yet still entertaining
"Humanity’s days on Earth are numbered. We have 1,800 days to live and our governments are spending those days lying to us.” Thankfully, this wasn’t about the US-North Korea stand-off. It was pre-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller Hard Sun (BBC One).
Detective duo DCI Charlie Hicks (Jim Sturgess) and DI Elaine Renko (Agyness Deyn) had stumbled upon proof of an extinction-level event. The world faced destruction from a catastrophic solar storm in five years’ time – an inconvenient truth which the state was desperate to suppress.
Now Renko persuaded a journalist to publish a story about it, which the government dismissed as “the greatest hoax since the Hitler diaries”. Our heroes and a few swivel-eyed conspiracy theorists were the only ones who believed the truth.
Meanwhile, Hicks raced to catch a spree killer obsessed with the impending end-of-days. His murders were surprisingly gory, with slit throats and Jackson Pollock-esque blood spatter. I hope any young football fans staying up late for Match of the Day didn’t spill their cocoa in shock.
Former model Deyn, all haunted intensity and fierce physicality, stole the show from Sturgess, whose Mockney accent and SUDDEN bursts of SHOUTING hardly added nuance to his performance. He seemed to be impersonating Idris Elba, star of Hard Sun creator Neil Cross’s other series Luther, without the charisma to quite carry it off.
Like Channel 4’s Utopia or Marvel’s gritty superhero shows on Netflix, Hard Sun’s stylised look and over-the-top set pieces were often reminiscent of a graphic novel as much as a TV drama.
Characters slid across car bonnets, beat baddies to a pulp and talked in hard-boiled one-liners. Scenes took place in telegenic atria, swish white offices and neon-lit alleys. Everyone had dark secrets to brood over and a wall of evidence to stare at moodily.
Taken seriously, Hard Sun was ludicrously implausible. Treated as a cartoonish popcorn romp, though, it was exhilarating entertainment.
The end might be nigh but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have fun while we wait.
