The Night Manager season two: the good, the bad and the boring

Of the shows I've watched on Amazon Prime recently, there was one where one of the heroes made a passionate case against the unchecked proliferation of weapons and was willing to risk his life to stop it, though you could also see the point of his emotionally damaged antagonist. And then there was The Night Manager season two. 

Yes, Jonathan Pine is back, and I'm sorry to say as personality-less as ever. Over the years, when I've reread my first blog post about The Night Manager, I've felt guilty about my cattiness regarding Tom Hiddleston in the role. What did I mean when I called him "not conventionally handsome"? He is too! There's nothing wrong at all with the spacing of his eyes. Just look what an absolute dish he is as Loki in numerous Marvel films. What was I thinking?

The second season of The Night Manager comforts me a little, as it reminds me what a yawn-inducing cipher Pine is. The role settles itself over Hiddleston like a wet blanket, dousing all mischievous Loki charm. Pine doesn't even have a sense of humour; he just spends the whole series looking anxious. At least he's not all bronzed and beefcaked this time around, so he looks all right, from my point of view. Oh, and at the start of the season, we see that he has a cat called Corky (of whom he seems fond – the cat, that is, not his season one murder victim). With that, I've run out of nice things to say about the character. Better luck in Doomsday, Tom.

Why this neglect of proper character development for the hero? I suspect the head writer of the series, David Farr, is a bit of a villain-lover. He certainly invests more vim into depicting the baddies: although by no means complex, they are a lot more colourful than Pine and his allies. It's funny, because I didn't get this feeling from the first season, which had a certain tone of moral outrage. Now, although the villain plan is so evil you just have to root for Pine & Co regardless, the slight disdain towards the rich, privileged and criminal is replaced by shameless fascination. Pine seemed perfectly fine shrugging off Richard Roper and his fate at the end of season one. In season two, ten years later, he's still obsessed by Roper and his legacy, and so is the series.

It's hard to review season two of The Night Manager without spoilers (English newspapers didn't even try, so I got the main twist spoiled and was miffed, although it was rather an obvious one). Anyway, the  setup is that Pine once again has to go undercover after he gets wind of the dealings of Teddy Dos Santos, who calls himself "Roper's true heir". Dos Santos is also into illegal arms dealing, in spite of having his HQ in Colombia, where you'd have thought it would be tempting to get into other kinds of shady trades. I don't quite understand why they made the Night Manager baddies arms dealers. Wouldn't drugs be more boo-hissable? Or is this just my Swedish bias?

At the start, I thought I'd like season two more than the sluggishly paced first season. The thriller elements worked well, and Diego Calva's Dos Santos was a charming villain. He had lots more chemistry with Hiddleston's Pine than Pine's potential love interest, sultry Roxana (Camila Morrone), and single-handedly provided most of it. It soon becomes clear that Dos Santos is merely a pawn and not the Big Bad (of course not, he's way too cute). After That Twist at the end of episode three, there are still many enjoyable scenes and nail-biting sequences, but there's no denying the plot's bizarre. One of the protagonists from the first season has to act completely out of character for it all to happen.

Still, if you see it as entertaining, high-octane thriller nonsense with no pretensions to hard-hitting realism, season two of The Night Manager is a good time – up until the highly disappointing ending. I know there's a season three in the works, but really, what was that? I'm not sure how a third season will be able to salvage the whole, to be honest. Though I'll watch it, naturally. I need to know what happened to Corky the cat.

The show I alluded to in the first paragraph? The Legend of Vox Machina, animated, R-rated fantasy inspired by a game I've never played. And yet, it has considerably more complex and likeable characters than a supposedly high-prestige BBC drama like The Night Manager. That's the way of the world.

Chibnall does Christie – and it could have been worse

"From the creator of Broadchurch", an ad boasted, and my heart sank. When I nominated Seven Dials on Netflix as one of the 2026 shows I was looking forward to, I had no idea that the script-writer would be none other than Chris Chibnall, the inventor of The Timeless Child and the bane of Gallifrey.

I had a lot of problems with Chibnall's run as Doctor Who showrunner, which wasn't unexpected, as I didn't care for the Who episodes he penned during the reigns of his predecessors Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat either. Now, however, after RTD has botched his return to the show so badly, I've started wondering whether I judged Chibs too harshly. There were parts of his Doctor Who run I liked, such as the Flux series and The Power of the Doctor. Consequently, I was prepared to give his version of The Mystery of the Seven Dials (simply called Seven Dials on Netflix) a fair chance – or fairish at any rate.

In the end, Seven Dials turned out to be a solid good watch. Chibnall proved to be a better Christie adapter than Sarah Phelps, just as his Doctor Who run (with hindsight) can be said to be better than the RTD 2/Disney Plus era. The problem is, that's not saying an awful lot. I was grateful Chibnall didn't mess around more with the source material than he did, but there were still lots of moments when I had reason to recall why his Who scripts irritated me in the first place.

The basic plot is more or less the same as in Christie's novel, and her twists are intact. Chibnall has added one twist of his own, but I didn't think it detracted from the original story. Other tweaks of the plot were pardonable too. I don't quite understand why Bundle had to be in love with the first murder victim – it causes her to mooch around a great deal during the whole first episode – but I didn't mind it much. Gender-swapping Lord Caterham to an almost equally unlikeable Lady Caterham worked quite well, especially as she's played by Helena Bonham Carter. Mandatory diversity is built into the plot by making Ronnie Devereux of Indian descent and the brilliant researcher from Cameroon rather than Germany, but if we have to play the diversity game I much prefer these kinds of changes to "colour-blind" casting.

What is less easy to bear are the outbreaks of clumsy commentary, as if Chibnall just had to leave his 21th-century fingerprints everywhere. Sir Oswald Coote lunges into a Brash Capitalist rant about how class can be bought at one time, for no good reason that I can see. A whole scene is dedicated to showing how harsh Lady Coote has been to a maid. Lady Coote in the book was a good-natured creature who was bullied by the Caterhams' gardener, but I accept that making her sharper adds her to the roster of likely suspects, which is no bad thing. However, she doesn't have to turn into a servant terroriser. Lady Caterham's snobbishness is very on the nose, and the Cameroonian scientist makes a whole little speech about how he and others on the African continent had to fight at the behest of "European white men" which sounds a great deal more 2020s rather than 1920s.

It's not as if Chibnall has that good a grasp of the period he apparently feels superior to. When George Lomax laments the lack of political interest of young women, Bundle replies sweetly "gives us the vote and we just might [take an interest]", whereupon Lomax guffaws patronisingly. It's true that Bundle wouldn't have had the vote in 1925, but married women of 30 and over already had the right to vote since 1918, so the idea of extending this right further wouldn't have felt far-fetched even for Lomax. Lady Caterham tells Bundle that Bundle's brother died because of the mistakes of a "drunken old general". The High Command during World War One hasn't had the best press, but that is surely an oversimplified view of what went down. Officers trained in traditional warfare were ill-equipped to make tactical decisions in the first truly modern war; I would argue that their age and state of inebriation didn't have much to do with it.

But enough complaining. Chibnall may not be able to refrain completely from Chibnallisms, but compared to some of the pontificating we've had from other script-writers, and the right-out distortions of the source material we got from Phelps, they are simply mild annoyances. The best thing about this adaptation is not the script but the stellar casting. Mia McKenna-Bruce is spot-on as Bundle (though Chibnall should have given her a better grasp of grammar). Helena Bonham Carter is fun, as always. Martin Freeman makes a surprisingly convincing Battle, and his first confrontation with McKenna-Bruce's Bundle adds a welcome sparkle to the proceedings. Edward Bluemel is excellent as Jimmy Thesiger, and Alexander Macqueen is genuinely funny as Lomax. You wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of Mark Lewis Jones's Sir Oswald Coote, especially not if he was carrying his rifle and you were an aristo.

It's a shame that a few things are dragged out or added unnecessarily, while other aspects of the plot which were important in the book – Bill Eversleigh's feeling for Bundle, the efficiency of Pongo – get very little room. But all in all, this isn't a bad Seven Dials version. If Chibnall chooses to do a sequel of some kind (maybe adapting The Secret of Chimneys, though that would be reversing the original chronological order of the novels), I'm here for it. 

Apologies to Nora Roberts

A good while back (in 2017, which is a horrifying nine years ago) I was pretty harsh on Nora Roberts, on the basis on The Next Always which I tried to read and then gave up on. I owe her an apology, because since then I've enjoyed plenty of her novels – but as audiobooks, not as paperbacks.

Roberts is a good example of the differences between an audiobook and a paper novel. Things you like listening to would not necessarily thrill you as reading matter, and vice versa. The typical Nora Roberts novel is, in my view, ideal for the audiobook medium. I had an especially good time with her latest Lost Bride trilogy: Inheritance, The Mirror and The Seven Rings. The plot in brief: Sonya, a feisty web designer who's just thrown out her cheating fiancé and quit her job, inherits a lovely Maine mansion from an unknown uncle. It is full of friendly ghosts, plus one hostile one. Sonya has to figure out how to break a curse in order to help the friendly ghosts to move on, as clues are conveniently drip-fed to her.

Plot-wise, the whole story could easily be condensed into one volume. But as an audiobook listener, I appreciated the hanging-out-with-characters scenes which annoyed me in The Next Always. I wallowed in the cosiness of it all while I did my chores and Sonya, her best friend Cleo and their respective love interests cooked and ate good food, went for outings, acquired charming pets, interacted with the friendly ghosts (that was my favourite part) and were successful at their jobs. 

Would all this have bored me had I read it? Possibly. The Lost Bride trilogy did not try to interest me in the minutiae of renovating a hotel or helping a kid in the bathroom, so I think I would have liked it more than The Next Always even on paper. What I am sure of is that I got more enjoyment from the trilogy as listening matter than I would have got in book form.

When I read, I like the story to have some momentum and not get too stuck in one particular place, however appealing that place may be. In an audiobook, on the other hand, I don't mind dwelling for a little longer than necessary story-wise in a pleasant fictional world. So the attractive settings and friendly banter of Roberts's novels work very well. The sex scenes are a bit of a trial for me, as I don't much care for the Rugged Hero type that Roberts's heroines fancy, but that's a minor quibble.

Conversely, there are gripping reads that work less well as audiobooks. If a novel has a huge cast of characters, for instance, it's a disadvantage for an audiobook as you can't just flip back the pages to remind yourself who X was, then easily find where you were again. If an author has a certain style you're particularly partial to, it can fly by you too easily while you're distracted by making the bed or cleaning the kitchen. For this reason, I only occasionally listen to my downloaded audiobook version of A Tale of Two Cities, although it is very nicely read by Martin Jarvis. It would be interesting to find out if P.G. Wodehouse works in the audiobook medium or not: I suspect not, but I could be wrong.

So, sorry, Nora, for not finding the best way to enjoy your novels sooner. If I can find something equally feel-good in paper form as Blue Dahlia (the Roberts novel I'm currently listening to) to get me through January, I'll be very lucky.

Zootopia/Zootropolis 2 – Is the sequel better than the original?

I do appreciate the Epiphany holiday, which comes around just when you're feeling a bit grumpy that Christmas is in essence over. Not if the Three Wise Men have anything to say about it, it's not! For some lucky Swedish employees like me, what with the 6th being on a Tuesday, we get an extra "squeeze day" off this year. But it does mean that I have no excuse not to get a blog post in.

It's time to talk about Zootopia 2, released as Zootropolis 2 in Europe (why? I guess I could ask AI). Although Zootropolis 2 is in my opinion a somewhat better title – would you really name a city "Zootopia"? – I'll stick to the original title for the rest of the post for simplicity's sake. Zootopia 2 has become a smash hit which Disney Animation sorely needed, and also happens to be a very good film. But is it as good as the original Zootopia, or even better?

The plot is more or less what you'd expect. Optimistic bunny cop Judy Hopps and her new (police) partner, the cynical fox Nick Wilde, investigate another mystery that turns out to be a conspiracy, and end up being chased by their colleagues all over the city while trying to fix everything. Meanwhile, their partnership comes under strain. Somewhat unexpectedly, Judy is the one most willing to break rules for the Greater Good while Nick wants to play it safe. They fight, they make up, they become closer, and their reputation as crime-solvers is finally restored, while the city learns a new lesson in tolerance, this time towards reptiles.

I had a lot of time for the first film (or movie, as we're talking Disney and the US), so it's a relief that the sequel is as enjoyable as it is. I love Judy and Nick and their dynamic, and of course I ship them – judging by the reaction of a shady ant-eater when they're posing as a couple undercover, interspecies relationships are unusual but not impossible in this world. On rewatching the first Zootopia on Disney Plus, I also have to admit that in some ways, the sequel is a shade better than the original.

For one, it has the edge when it comes to pacing. The first Zootopia had to introduce us to the whole concept of the animal-ruled world and its capital, so the first half can feel meandering. When the sequel comes along, we're already on board, and the plot unfolds in a more streamlined way, which will probably make the sequel a tad more rewatchable. The focus on the Hopps-Wilde relationship is very welcome (though kids may fidget a bit in their big heart-to-heart scenes). Here, it truly feels as if the sequel isn't just repeating the same beats as the original, but digs deeper. New side characters like Gary De Snake are endearing, the animation top-notch (of course) and the Zootopia cityscapes as fascinating as ever, with lots of little gags strewn in to chuckle over.

In one instance, though, the original trumps the sequel, and because of the kind of movies Zootopia and Zootopia 2 are it's not unimportant. I thought the discussion about the nature of prejudice was way more interesting in Zootopia than in Zootopia 2.

Yes, you heard me. I'm actually praising the social commentary in an animated film. I willingly admit, normally I'm sick of political messaging being rammed down my throat when all I want is to enjoy a piece of entertainment. How annoyed I get depends on whether I agree with the sentiment (it happens) or the conclusions drawn (not often) by the earnest people who are trying to force-feed me their musings on the State of Society. The "let's fight prejudice" message is a tricky one. In itself, it's not controversial, though there are very different schools of thought on how prejudice is best counteracted (I'll not go into details, not when I should be talking about Zootopia 2). But it really has been done to death, and the very lack of controversy feeds into the messaging fatigue here. It's nice that you're for world peace, dear filmmakers. Can we move on now?

If we have to have a "let's fight prejudice" message in an animated film, though, I thought the first Zootopia handled the topic rather well. It showed that overcoming prejudice isn't always easy, not when your experiences seem to confirm the notions you already have unconsciously tucked away. It acknowledged that "real life is messy" and that it can take time to reach a mutual understanding. Moreover, by showing how the predators, not the prey, become a target for a smear campaign, it highlights that prejudice can cut all sorts of ways. You can be comparatively privileged but still become a victim of prejudices fuelled by envy and resentment. At the same time, it's not as if Vice-Mayor Bellwether (the film's twist villain, a put-upon sheep) didn't have a case.

There's no such nuance in Zootopia 2. We are informed at an early stage by Gary that reptiles "aren't the bad guys – they are", "they" being a family of powerful entrepreneur lynxes who run the city part of Tundra Town and want to expand it. Though the story has its twists and turns, there's nothing in it that overturns this initial statement. As soon as we hear that the lynx family's ancestor, who's supposed to have invented the city's crucial weather machine, is called Ebenezer, we know that he will turn out to be a crook. So, rich lynxes bad, outcast reptiles good. Nothing that we haven't seen in a myriad of other films, and not exactly the kind of setup to make you think. 

I predict that later Zootopia films will go the same way and lean more into the buddy-cop (or possibly something more) dynamic between Judy and Nick rather than explore the prejudice theme. Fine by me, as long as we're acknowledging that this is what's going on, and that there's nothing we can really take away message-wise from a film that tells us to beware of lynxes (they look quite cuddly, though, not gonna lie) and root for the underdog. Zootopia 2 is great fun, and I'm up for the inevitable sequels. But a film of ideas it is not.