Add Category
The Devil’s Hour ★★★½
Prime Video
Does Peter Capaldi get his Hannibal Lecter on in this spooky new British chiller-thriller? Sort of – he’s not a serial killer (we don’t think) but he is a fairly scary man named Gideon, who happens to be possessed of certain uncanny information that you wouldn’t believe if he told you. Though perhaps you would believe it if you were single mum Lucy Chambers (Jessica Raine), a good woman on her last frayed nerve.
Peter Capaldi plays Gideon in The Devil’s Hour.Credit:Prime Video
Lucy’s highly stressful job in child protection is essentially the least of her worries. She also has an unsettling, emotionally inert young son named Isaac (impressive newcomer Benjamin Chivers), who behaves in ways that defy psychiatric diagnosis, and who sees people that aren’t there. Well, presumably they’re not there – who knows?
Lucy also wakes with a start every night at 3.33am – the middle of the so-called Devil’s Hour. And she has split-second visions that she characterises as deja vu of things that never happened (perhaps she’s unfamiliar with the concept of precognition).
As the series begins, Lucy and Gideon aren’t even on each other’s radar. Lucy is dealing with a violent client that she fears will kill his former partner and daughter. She also has an ambiguous sexual relationship with her ex, Mike (Ted Lasso’s Phil Dunster), who wants nothing to do with their son because the kid doesn’t provide the affection he expects.
Collision courses are set by a murder investigation led by DI Ravi Dhillon (Nikesh Patel), who has an unfortunate fear of blood but the perfect offsider in DS Nick Holness, a shrewd, bristling walrus of a man played by Alex Ferns (who won the Scottish BAFTA for Chernobyl nearly two decades after winning Villain of the Year at the British Soap Awards for his work on EastEnders).
Certain stars seem to have aligned for this series – former Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat, who cast Capaldi as the Doctor, is on board as an executive producer – and it’s assured, tense and intriguing from the outset.
Loading
Raine, who was so brilliant as the scheming, libidinous Catherine Parr in Becoming Elizabeth (Stan), is a standout once more, giving her character the frayed, exasperated edge of a highly competent and conscientious woman who just can’t quite keep on top of everything.