Film and TV

The Deep sees James Nesbitt as a submarine captain fighting something fishy at the bottom ef the sea
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TV Choice: Open Water, Michael Collins' great niece & The Deep

By Mike Pyle
July 29, 2010

Every week our square-eyed reporters take a look at what’s on TV – the highlights and the lowlights – and pick what they think you should watch or avoid.

Open Water, ITV1, Friday, 10.35pm

How about ending your working week by being stranded way out in the ocean, with no signs of rescue and a load of sharks bothering you?

And by ‘bothering’ I mean threatening to eat your legs.

Fortunately for you, that’s not an invitation, but the premise of this film which is based on a true story.

Open Water won praise when it was premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was billed as “Jaws meets the Blair Witch Project”.

A couple on a scuba diving holiday get separated from the rest of the crew and their boat. Naturally, they’re a little concerned about how they’re going to get home and what they’re going to do about food when the obligatory dorsal fin arrives to tell them they have bigger problems than their soaked sandwiches.

The whole film is shot on a slightly grainy, wobbly digital camera which adds to the tension and the vast openness of the ocean is captured well, generating a real feeling of loneliness and isolation.

Although this was critically acclaimed when it was released in 2004, I’m not a fan. The set-up is excellent but it never really goes anywhere.

There are some fantastic moments, like the somehow surprising moment the sharks arrive, but it fails to provide a decent payoff for the tension it creates.

It feels a bit like getting to the top of a rollercoaster ramp only to find it wasn’t actually a rollercoaster ramp, it was an escalator and you’ve just arrived at Boots.

The Boss Is Coming To Dinner, Five, Monday, 6pm

Bit of a Come Dine With Me rip-off, this one.

The set up here is that job candidates invite their prospective bosses over for dinner in the hope of impressing them enough to get the job of their dreams.

In theory, that’s almost as good a prize as any. But, as with most of Five’s output, the promise doesn’t stand up.

Unless you’re a catering firm, I wouldn’t imagine that your business model includes employing people based on their ability to host a dinner party.

In this first episode, the employer is a hairdresser who will, presumably, end up hiring someone who can baste your barnet in a piquant marinade.

Who Do You Think You Are?, BBC One, Monday, 9pm

I’m not always a fan of Who Do You Think You Are? I’m not big on the cult of celebrity and, as such, I don’t really care about many of their family histories.

There are exceptions, especially when the family stories are so interesting that it doesn’t matter who the celebrity involved is.

This promises to be one of those episodes.

Actress Dervla Kirwan climbs her family tree to find out that Michael Collins, the revolutionary who set up the Irish Free State, is her great uncle.

She also knows little of the paternal side of her family and meets her dad to find out that her great granddad was Jewish.

The Deep, BBC One, Tuesday, 9pm

This week’s column has developed a slightly nautical theme.

The Deep is a drama about a team of scientists aboard the Orpheus, a deep-sea submarine, who are going to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean to search for a renewable energy source.

The crew, which includes characters played by James Nesbitt and Minnie Driver, are nervous before they eventually set out because the last lot who went on the mission died in mysterious circumstances.

Their anxiety is heightened when more mysterious circumstances lead to their communications with the surface being cut off.

They are stranded at the bottom of the ocean, with limited oxygen, no power and no way of calling for help, and they’re all alone – or so they think … dun dun duuuurrrr!

The crew will try to survive and get to the bottom of all these mysterious circumstances over the course of this five-part thriller.