The Split, Series 2, BBC One review - where the law and family fortunes collide

★★★ THE SPLIT, SERIES 2, BBC ONE Where the law and family fortunes collide

Does Abi Morgan's legal drama really want to be a soap?

The return of screenwriter Abi Morgan’s series about a largely-female London law firm is no doubt in tune with our gender and equality-conscious times, but that doesn’t mean it’s great television. Its legal storylines are counterpointed against episodes of sentimentality and self-congratulation, as if it wanted to be The Good Wife but ended up as Doctors.

Young, Sikh and Proud, BBC One review - siblings divided by their attitudes to faith

Journalist Sunny Hundal examines the legacy of his late brother Jagraj Singh

Journalist Sunny Hundal has a long track record as a writer and blogger concerned with issues of race, politics and ethnicity. He’s also the brother of the late Jagraj Singh, an influential preacher who encouraged a dramatic upsurge of interest in the Sikh faith among young people, not least through his hugely successful YouTube channel.

Dracula, BBC One review - horrific, and not in a good way

★★ DRACULA, BBC TWO Horrific, and not in a good way

Superfluous remake of Bram Stoker's novel outstays its welcome

“Bela Lugosi’s dead,” as Bauhaus sang, in memory of the star of 1931’s Dracula. But of course death has never been an impediment to the career of the enfanged Transylvanian blood-sucker. Filmed and televisualised almost as frequently as Sherlock Holmes, Count Dracula would doubtless join the cockroaches as the only entities to survive a thermonuclear holocaust.

Elizabeth Is Missing, BBC One review - a tender but tough-minded drama about ageing and loss

RIP GLENDA JACKSON - ELIZABETH IS MISSING Tender, tough-minded drama of ageing & loss

Glenda Jackson makes a welcome comeback in this psychological thriller-lite

In films, as in life, unreliable narrators are not hard to find. But there is something remarkable about the unreliable narrator of Elizabeth is Missing, BBC One’s newest feature-length drama. Its protagonist, Maud (Glenda Jackson), is unreliable in the extreme – confused, forgetful and emotionally wounded. Yet unlike most unreliable narrators, we never fear that Maud is trying to sell us a false story. She is so clearly fighting to understand the truth.

Gold Digger, BBC One review - Julia Ormond tackles those mid-life blues

★★★ GOLD DIGGER, BBC ONE Julia Ormond tackles those mid-life blues

Marnie Dickens's family drama asks if life can begin again at 60

A tip of the hat to Julia Ormond for boldly going where many an actress might have chosen not to. In this new six-parter by Marnie Dickens, she plays Julia Day, a mother of three who’s just divorced her husband and is turning 60. Dickens’s objective, we may surmise, was to drive away the fog of invisibility which can descend irrationally upon mature women, however capable they may be, and demonstrate that age can indeed be just a number.

World on Fire, BBC One, series finale review - may this fine war drama fight on

★★★★ WORLD ON FIRE, BBC ONE Peter Bowker's ambitious series ended on a cliffhanger

Peter Bowker's ambitious series ended on a cliffhanger, with viewers waiting to learn its fate

A bit like all those people on the home front in 1940 (but only a little bit), we sit and nervously wait for news. Is World on Fire (BBC One) still listed among the living? Or even now is someone typing up the letter and sticking it in a brown envelope? “Fell bravely in the field … did its country proud etc…” Please may this ambitious Sunday-night drama live to fight another day?