Eve: Review: Series 1 Episode 3: Beautiful Game

Will persuades Eve to join in a football game, as Katherine’s plans for the spiders hit a snag…

There are some interesting tonal shifts in this episode, particularly when the tense sequences when Lily is trying to find out what’s happened to the “cleaning spider”, are juxtaposed with comedic moments on the football pitch, as Eve tries to take charge, and then learns some important lessons about being human. With many of the scenes with the robot girl played for laughs – and her far-too-close shadowing of Will is still comic to watch – it’s easy to forget the red-eyed moments at the end of the first two episodes. Poppy Lee Friar and Oliver Woollford are developing a nice double-act between them, with Eubha Akilade’s Lily acting as an occasional voice of reason.

Adults watching can play a fun game of spotting the homages in each episode (The End of the World from the RTD series of Doctor Who meets The Lodger from the Matt Smith season at times in this), but as with Primeval a few years back, it doesn’t matter if the show’s influences show, as long as it’s doing something interesting and different with them. So far, it’s succeeding in doing that, and the throwforward for episode four suggests that Eve is about to take a sharp left turn…

Verdict: Slightly lighter weight than the first two episodes, this mines the series’ comic potential, but still maintains its edge. 7/10

Paul Simpson