TV episode review
UK airdate 3 March 2011 (ITV1)

Why is Alice leaving the message ASKOR across the different times?

One of the most solidly entertaining genre pieces for television in some years concludes with an episode that pulls together the various clues left in the three different time zones and provides explanations for viewers – if not always for the characters themselves.

Tessa Peake-Jones and Dennis Lawson as Alice’s grandparents anchor the earliest segments with a conversation that simply couldn’t have occurred in either 1987 or 2010.

Indeed, as with all aspects of Marchlands, as the explanations unfold, you realise that everything would have played very differently had similar events happened in either of the other years: Stephen Greenhorn captures the mores of each period without hammering the point home (the way sex is portrayed is one of the most telling) and uses them to further his tale.

The attention to detail throughout has been incredible: episodes of The Saint play in 1968 while the 1987 family watch Countdown (and it wouldn’t surprise me if the episodes were the right ones). There’s only been one real anachronism, when a K-registered vehicle was seen in 1968 – three years before it existed!

Criticism has been levelled at the show’s schlock elements – Alice’s handprints appearing, the occasional sight of Alice – but this episode shows why they were necessary. If you’ve watched the series so far, you’ll end it with answers that not only work for the storyline but are appropriate to the characters.

If you’ve not caught it, then pick up the DVD when it comes out on 7th March, and prepare for a great chiller. Paul Simpson

VERDICT: 8/10