Yahoo News TV Review: You, Me and the Apocalypse (Episode Two)
You, Me and the Apocalypse is a bold, adrenaline-fuelled comedy drama about the last days of mankind - boasting a relentlessly entertaining mix of action, adventure, romance and wit set against a backdrop of apocalyptic chaos.
The story follows an eclectic group of seemingly unconnected characters around the world as their lives start to intersect in the most unexpected ways, all triggered by the news that a comet is on an unavoidable collision course towards earth.
With this stellar programme being broadcast on NBC for the first time, I thought now would be the right moment to look back on this impressive, well told story.
So, another episode of this fun comedy drama series. We’re still following the stories of our protagonists from last week - Jamie & Dave, Rhonda & Leanne, and Father Jude & Sister Celine - but we also meet some new ones (Paterson Joseph as General Gaines, and Kyle Soller as Scotty), and see the overarcing plot move forward.
A real strength of this series, I think, is the multiple perspectives and different strands that the story takes. The narrative progresses at a fairly strong pace, and they maintain a level of intrigue with the little introduction at the start of each episode. Making the ending clear, but not quite the details of the ending, gives them an anchor to each episode, which works quite effectively, I think. There was another new character shown to us in the bunker at the start this episode - a wounded soldier. He’s not been introduced in the present yet, so I’m interested to see where that goes.
It’s worth singling out Joel Fry as Dave, who was consistently the funniest character throughout this episode. He’s got a great double act going with Mat Baynton, which is a lot of fun to watch. The majority of the best lines and moments this episode came from him - the sequence with the elderly people was quite funny, as well as the car surfing. It’s also nice to see another approach to the idea of the apocalypse; the show’s done pretty well with displaying a fairly diverse set of circumstances and attitudes amongst the different characters.
Something that also stood out to me was the question of Father Jude’s faith. Admittedly, watching Rob Lowe read the Bible isn’t the most interesting thing I’ve seen on TV before (though they made a fairly good effort), but the fact that, despite all his vices, Father Jude has a strong faith and belief, seems to me to be a fairly compelling character trait.
Episode two wasn’t, admittedly, quite as good at the opener, but it was still an enjoyable way to spend an hour of my time. Which is really all I want from something like this!
8/10
