More secrets uncovered in ‘The Pact’

The Pact BBC1, Monday, 9pm.

The Devil’s Hour Amazon Prime

Louis Theroux Interviews… BBC2, Tuesday, 9.15pm.

Raiders Of The Lost Past BBC2, Sunday, 10pm.

Night Of The Daniels YouTube

BBC seem to have taken a step towards the repertory, anthology likes of American Horror Story with the second season of The Pact: the new season’s story has nothing to do with the first season, but it also stars Rakie Ayola, who portrayed a detective last time around, and a social worker called Christine this time. As if her day job wasn’t stressful enough, her own family is suddenly under pressure when a young man shows up claiming to be her son. Of course she denies it to her children, but her reticence seems a clear indication that she knows more than she’s letting on.

Behind all the surface differences, though, there are thematic similarities in both seasons: mainly, in studying the different responses of a group of people to an accidental situation or bad decision, and of course their shared sense of tension as the actual truth repeatedly wriggles away just out of sight. Some of that tension is crested through good performances of nicely-drawn characters (Mali Ann Rees as the gentle daughter in particular), though other elements feel slightly cheaper and deliberately puzzling (that drawn-out and limp burglary scene).

So it started with a slower – in fact, borderline boring – first half hour than season one did, but you might well have stayed through that for the acting, and out of a suspicion that surprises were coming. And indeed they were, and by the end of the first episode it had become a quietly-involving story in its own right, with a sense that there are more secrets still to be uncovered.

Something similar can be said about Amazon Prime’s The Devil’s Hour, though in this show the mysteries kick off right away and continue to multiply for at least the first three episodes.

It stars Jessica Raine as Lucy, who wakes up from nightmares every night at exactly 3.33 a.m. Sometimes she finds her son, the emotionless and spooky Isaac (Benjamin Chivers), standing there with a blank look on his face, as if he is seeing something she cannot.

It’s not, it’s fair to say, something that helps her with her stress.

But even during her waking hours – she is also a social worker – she seems to be having tiny, fleeting breaks from reality: brief visions that might be memories, or signs of mental illness, or, as increasingly seems likely, visions of the future. And when Isaac disappears from the house one day, she comes into contact with the imprisoned menace Gideon (Peter Capaldi); not only is Gideon suspected of taking Isaac, but he wants to explain to Lucy what is happening in her life and in her head – and seems to know an awful lot about her.

There are various other subplots, all of which seem to have some strange link to the central puzzle: a bloody murder, a forest full of abandoned fridges, Lucy’s own elderly mother who also seems to see things that aren’t there.

But in the foreground are Lucy, played as both capable and worn-out by Raine, and Gideon, played with wonderful sinisterness by Capaldi (even though the deliberately eerie upwards lighting used on him sometimes make him look like an ailing angry parrot).

Gideon seems to be somewhere between Dr Lecter and Dr Who (aptly enough), and his conversations with Lucy, if sometimes slightly vague in a drag-it-out TV way, are fraught and fascinating.

There is a lot going on, and it remains to be seen if it can tie everything together in a satisfactory way, but so far it’s managed to keep a mysterious tone, and it’s good creepy fun to watch at this time of year.

Louis Theroux’s new series, Louis Theroux Interviews… sees him retreating from the more extreme investigative work he has done in recent years, to a much cosier, more focused kind of programme. Maybe he’s just had enough of the dangerous and the demented, and sees a very real gap in the TV schedules: after all, who, in these days of scripted celebs trying to sell something usually worthless, sits down with a single celebrity for a long-form, one-on-one interview? I for one can see Theroux, with his politely probing manner, having a long career at this.

That said, his first interview wasn’t exactly explosive, but it did offer a new perspective on his guest, Stormzy.

Actually, it started off in quite amusing fashion, with Stormzy himself joking about being intimidated by Theroux’s own fame, before kicking off properly with a potted history of Stormzy’s early life: growing up in Croydon, briefly taken with gang life, always clever.

But we also get glimpses of the real man behind the Stormzy façade: low-key religious, struggling with the pressures of fame, always trying to be a role model.

He was, in fact, more thoughtful and even traditional than people might expect from his music and image; and that itself is an indication of the kind of interesting angles Theroux’s new direction might take us in.

Marking 100 years – the BBC was launched at the very same time – since the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, the excellent Janina Ramirez gave us a (sadly) one-off episode of Raiders Of The Lost Past. Inevitably she recounts the “wonderful things” story everyone is already familiar with – the Carter and Lord Carnarvon expedition, the impact on 1920s world culture, the treasures themselves, the old nonsense about a curse – but it’s still a good story no matter how often we’ve heard it.

But she also delves into a few other, slightly less familiar elements, telling us who is to blame for some of the missing treasures, offering more detail on Tut’s family lineage and power, and following Carter’s trail around Egypt.

If you’ve a general interest in this story, there might not have been anything very new for you, but Ramirez’ own enthusiasm is enjoyable, and it’s certainly a good primer for people new to the story – and so much less excitable and full of nonsense than something from, say, National Geographic.

And, finally, there was Daniel O’Donnell’s new video, Night Of The Daniels, accompanying his new single Burning Love.

I must admit, his music does nothing for me, but the man himself is slyly funny and happy to send himself up, and the 10-minute video – in which a Daniel waxwork museum goes horrifyingly wrong – was genuinely entertaining: local, knowingly hammy, and funny, with a new action hero for the decade. Hats off.

By Paul Bradley