Vigil
Killing Sherlock: Lucy Worsley On The Case Of Conan Doyle
When computer coders warn of Artificial Intelligence posing a threat to hum- anity, killer drones are exactly the kind of thing they are worried about.
And if you do happen to find a killer drone parcelled up in glittery wrapping paper under the tree this year, for heaven’s sake don’t switch it to Autopilot mode.
That was the wretched error made by smug Air Vice-Marshall Marcus Grainger (Dougray Scott) as Vigil (BBC1) returned.
Suranne Jones (right) excelled as DCI Amy Silva, a detective-turned-action hero alongside Game Of Thrones star Rose Leslie (left) as her cop sidekick and lover DI Kirsten Longacre
Romola Garai (pictured), 41, who plays Eliza Russell, Acting Squadron Leader at the Wudyan air base and another formidable woman who’s had to step up into a position of power
Instead of returning to base, the rocket-copters opened fire on British troops before attempting to blow up a visiting Middle Eastern arms dealer.
It’s all very well to say, ‘Just take the batteries out,’ but try doing that when it’s lobbing grenades at you.
This scenario is rather more plausible than the previous series of Vigil in 2021, which saw Suranne Jones as DCI Amy Silva, trapped on board a nuclear submarine.
At one point, she was loaded into a torpedo tube, seconds away from being blasted off like a missile.
Pedants might point out it’s slightly odd for Amy, a Glasgow copper, to be put in charge of the investigation into how seven soldiers from the Royal Air Force regiment came to be gunned down by one of their own drones or RPAS [remotely piloted aircraft systems].
You’d think the RAF Police might want to take an interest too. Other aspects were puzzling: is it really usual for a Chief Inspector’s sidekick to be her own pregnant girlfriend — DI Kirsten Longacre, played by Rose Leslie? Morse and Lewis were a close-knit team, but never as close as that.
Strangest of all was the reaction of Grainger and Amy when they went to examine the wreckage of the rogue drone. A massive explosion, just a few yards away, knocked them off their feet.
The detective and the air vice-marshall dusted themselves down and carried on their conversation, in the same spot. They didn’t even ask what went bang.
Given that police will evacuate entire streets if a neighbour discovers an unexploded World War II bomb in the back garden, this lax attitude seems less than vigilant.
Like many of his fans, Lucy Worsley (pictured) has always had a bit of a crush on Sherlock Holmes. Bookish, fiendishly clever, bohemian, a bit antisocial, what’s not to love
Lucy discovers that at one point he was going to be called Sherrinford Holmes – but Sherlock (pictured is Benedict Cumberbatch who plays the character), with his intellect and idiosyncrasies, was there from the start
Despite these plot holes, big enough to fly a drone through, Vigil zips along at highly entertaining speed. Jones and Leslie are both having fun, bickering together constantly but making the action sequences believable.
Scott is excellent too as the suavely jaded top brass, very different from his own role as a detective, the shabby DI Ray Lennox, in the ITV serial Crime.
Lucy Worsley was playing detective as she delved into the origins of the greatest sleuth of all, in Killing Sherlock: On The Case Of Conan Doyle (BBC2).
Always a good sport, she dashed through a hay meadow like Theresa May in high spirits, to test Holmes’s theory that sniffer dogs can always track down runaways. Unsurprisingly, the hound found her.
And she had the back of her hands inspected for blemishes, hooting with laughter when she heard them called ‘age spots’.
Apparently, our hands are as unique as fingerprints — another of Holmes’s theories proven.
As in her case study of Agatha Christie last year, she uncovered delightful factlets.
Who knew that Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel The Sign Of Four and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture Of Dorian Gray were commissioned at the same boozy publisher’s lunch?
Prof Lucy donned a blue-and-white Pompey scarf to report from the pitchside at Portsmouth FC, after discovering that Conan Doyle used to play in goal for the club, under the name A.C. Smith.
What a pity that Holmes himself wasn’t a footballer. Instead of, ‘Elementary, Watson,’ his catchphrase might have been, ‘It’s a penalty, Watson!’
Sneaky peep of the weekend: ‘I love going for a walk at that witching hour when people haven’t closed their curtains yet,’ admitted Kirstie Allsopp on her Handmade Christmas (Ch4).
She claims she’s only spying on their trees. We’ll leave you to explain that to the police, Kirstie.