Rating:
ITV’s latest stripped-through-the-week thriller, Viewpoint, got Monday’s episode out of the way, and Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s, then the news broke of multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against its star, Noel Clarke. (Oh please, not Noel.)
Thursday night’s episode went ahead but Friday’s finale was pulled from the main schedule – hello, It’ll Be Alright On The Night, what a trusty old friend you are – and is available solely at ITV Hub until tonight.
There was an outcry in some quarters. What happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty’? Where’s the justice in this? Who killed Gemma? You’re going to leave us hanging in the air?
Viewpoint, ITV review - the perils of the peeping tom police theartsdesk.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theartsdesk.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Review
Viewpoint, episode 1 review: it may borrow heavily from Rear Window but this ITV drama is no Hitchcock
3/5
Noel Clarke puts in a strong performance as a police surveillance officer who s installed in a woman s house
26 April 2021 • 10:00pm
Noel Clarke stars in Viewpoint
Credit: ITV
The debt that
Viewpoint (ITV) owes to Rear Window is obvious, and it’s a good advert for curtain companies. The voyeur in this case has a legitimate reason for spying on the people across the street: he is DC Martin Young (Noel Clarke), a police surveillance officer keeping watch on the partner of a missing primary schoolteacher.
Mon 26 Apr 2021 17.00 EDT
There were two oddly refreshing things about ITVâs new drama series Viewpoint, which is stripped across this week (three if you count it being set and shot in Manchester, rather than London â or Belfast pretending to be London). The first is that the lone woman walking beside the canal in the opening shot is a) doing so in daylight and b) destined to survive the journey. You donât realise how much you relish the sight of non-dead women by canals in TV drama until you see one. It feels ludicrously charming.
The second is that time moves in linear fashion. There are no flashbacks. The lone woman â single parent (effectively) Zoe, played by Alexandra Roach picks up her daughter from primary school, covertly fascinated by much yummier mummy Kate (Catherine Tyldesley) as she does so. Both mothers engage in happy chat with devoted teacher Gemma (Amy Wren), and only the viewer sees Gemma return to a possessive, borderline-coercive boyfriend, G