WORDS Cailan O’Connell
Two weeks ago Breaking Bad returned to our laptop screens, bringing with it the knowledge that something which has changed the face of television over the last five years is now drawing to an end. For our North American friends, the show’s return brought with it the premiere of AMC’s proposed successor – Chris Mundy’s American reinterpretation of the 2006 British miniseries; Low Winter Sun.
Much like it’s spiritual predecessor, Low Winter Sun is another show which unites seasoned screen talents like Mark Strong, Lennie James and Breaking Bad’s David Costabile to tell a dramatic and complex story about desperate, dark men doing desperate, dark things. Unlike Vince Gilligan’s diamond in the rough, Mundy’s creation thus far has, rather unfortunately, very little of genuine interest to offer its audiences. Let’s not mince words or allow for any confusion. The show is marvelously acted. Strong is a stalwart success and James, in particular, has plenty of room to shine. Just as with Breaking Bad, the show’s characters are at the crux of it – right down to the very city into which the show breathes life. As much so as Albuquerque does for Breaking Bad’s Walter White, the once great and now wounded city of Detroit provides a powerful and constant visual reminder of what lies under the surface for our central characters. That said, what the show misses is not style or performance or even execution. It’s something much deeper and at the very heart of what it’s creators have set out to bring to the screen.
The show is marvelously acted. Strong is a stalwart success and James, in particular, has plenty of room to shine
If AMC had put this on air in 2007, the chances are this review would have gone rather differently. But now, in 2013, we’ve seen every trick the show has up its sleeve. It pays homage to AMC’s enduring success with Breaking Bad, to HBO’s glory days with The Wire and even to Showtime’s less talked about effort with the reinventive vessel they built for Kelsey Grammer in 2011’s Boss. There’s nothing technically wrong with Low Winter Sun. It’s not as expertly crafted as some of its predecessors but it’s still an entertaining hour of television in its own right. It’s boring because it’s stale and it’s stale because it’s been done before. It’s the majority of what we see on television these days but all wrapped into one vehicle. A desperate attempt to recreate something that’s been done too well to recreate convincingly. The show is certainly worth watching but the history behind it makes it hard to look at it as anything special.
It’s boring because it’s stale and it’s stale because it’s been done before, a desperate attempt to recreate something that’s been done too well to recreate convincingly
This is all said with the knowledge that it’s not necessarily fair to base the estimation of a new show so largely in comparison to its predecessors, but Low Winter Sun is a victim of those comparisons nonetheless. Received in isolation and judged upon it’s own merits – Chris Mundy’s creation is perfectly adequate television. However, as each new year brings with it new shows which continue to expand the horizons of what televisual drama can and should be, a show that simply does what has been done before, however competently or devotedly, is going to seem worn-out and insubstantial.
Even beyond this, it would be unrealistic to pretend as though the show’s only shortcoming was its lack of originality. Thus far the programme has held it’s own. With that in mind, the cracks have already begun to appear as Mundy and his writing team struggle to expand a three-hour British miniseries into a ten-episode run and potentially beyond. The material isn’t there, at least not yet. Then again, perhaps that’s where AMC have left room for a turnaround. If the show takes off in an interesting direction it will be in what happens from here and how the writers decide to make their next move. If they can figure out a way to bring something new to this well traversed genre then perhaps Breaking Bad will prove to be just the beginning of AMC’s incredible run. More likely though, the end of Breaking Bad and Mad Men respectively is going to mean a chance for a new network to step into the spotlight for a while. Only time will tell.
Low Winter Sun is currently airing Sundays at 10/9c on AMC.
