Must Watch reviews: Ann Droid, Van Der Valk, Possession

Every week, the Must Watch podcasters review the biggest TV and streaming shows.

This week, Hayley Campbell and Scott Bryan join Marianna Spring to review ‘Ann Droid’, ‘Van Der Valk’, and ‘Possession’.

What do the Must Watch reviewers make of them?

Created and written by Diane Morgan and Sarah Kendall, Ann Droid stars Sue Johnston as recently widowed Sue and Diane Morgan as Linda, an android companion. The sitcom explores grief, ageing, loneliness and companionship.

Scott and Hayley think Ann Droid is a Must Watch.

Hayley says, “I thought this was really great. It feels like a proper sitcom by which I mean, it's actually funny.”

“It's not patronising or cringey and it doesn't feel like the kind of thing that's made for an older demographic by a younger one. It's rude. It's funny. It's fast moving.”

She commends the show for its “tender” moments.

Hayley says, “it's also surprisingly tender, especially when the robot is trying to fill her hard drive with knowledge about human life and love and what it means to miss a dead husband.”

She acknowledges, “it does have a depth to it and I think a lot of that comes from Sue Johnston who plays Sue”.

Although the show is about a robot, Hayley says there’s so much more to it - “it's about real human things, ageing and grief and caring for elderly parents”.

Scott says, “this drama does explore grief really well and highlights that it's not linear, it's very complex. It has a real after effect and you can feel many different emotions mixing from anger to sadness”.

“You think it's not going to work, but then it really starts to gel really quite well.”

He also adds that he loves Diane Morgan’s characterisation of Linda.

“I think the reason why this works is that it takes the surreal part of her character that she's done elsewhere and places it firmly within quite a traditionally safe setting on BBC One," he says.

All episodes of Ann Droid are available to watch now on BBC iPlayer with episodes airing every Friday night at 9:30pm.

A modern remake of the long running Van der Valk franchise based on the novels by Nicolas Freeling. The series stars Marc Warren as Amsterdam detective Piet Van Der Valk. Series four sees him investigating a new set of murders and conspiracies across the Dutch capital.

Hayley and Scott both think this is not a Must Watch.

Scott thought the series was “quite predictable and quite unemotional”.

“I think it's the fact that all the characters speak to each other in this rather stilted form, which people in real life don't speak like.”

He explains the series is rather cliche, “it does seem to be a Sunday night staple for ITV to have a feature length drama that manages to get to a crucial cliffhanger and then cuts to a sofa advert”.

Scott was not impressed by the opening scene of the series.

"If you want to see a very dramatic close-up of a sink sort of being emptied, you've come to the right place. Because that was during one of the very dramatic death scenes 10 minutes in.”

Hayley says, “I think this is one to watch while heavily sedated in hospital”.

“The episodes are the kind of one and done film things that solve the mystery by the end. But by the end I had basically forgotten what the mystery was at the beginning.”

She is not impressed with the characterisation as “everyone delivers their lines like they're saying something incredibly cutting and witty, but it's just emotionally flat cliches”.

Overall, the series is exactly what she envisioned it would be, “if not more boring”.

Van Der Valk is available to watch on ITVX.

Starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Possession follows a British Jamaican lawyer investigating an inheritance linked to a Jamaican plantation. The supernatural thriller mixes ghost story elements with themes including colonialism, slavery, reparations and family history.

Scott and Hayley both think this is not a Must Watch.

Hayley says, “I thought this was watchable nonsense, but not a Must Watch for me.”

“It does a bit of ‘Trojan-horsing’ information, stuff that people might not know about, like how the British government compensated former slave owners after abolition.”

She is not a big fan of the plot as “it starts with a classic gothic horror story set up”.

“From there it turns into a very silly ghost story with witchcraft and possession and zombies and there's violence and there's running and there are car chases and there are people acting possessed.”

Visually, Hayley says, “it’s fine. It's shot on location in Jamaica so it's a new environment to look at on the screen. I'll probably go back and finish it but I don't think it's amazing”.

Scott says, “I think it's a good watch not a Must Watch. It felt like it was really heading to Must Watch. I'd zone out of it and then I would zoom back into it again”.

“It manages to weave in a lot of stuff that you might not know about the legacy of colonialism, about racism, about emancipation, and also what it is like to have connections to plantations now.”

Scott praises Gugu Mbatha-Raw for her performance, “I think she chooses her projects very carefully and that really comes through in her performances”.

He says, “I'm not saying it's a Must Watch. But it is drama wise, one of the first dramas that I've seen for quite a while that has rather impressed me”.

All episodes of Possession are available to watch on Sky and the streaming service Now, with episodes also available to watch on Sky Atlantic.

Listen to the full reviews of all three programmes on BBC Sounds.

But before all that, why not contact Must Watch with the shows you’ve been loving, loathing or both on mustwatch@bbc.co.uk.

We used AI to transcribe and summarise our Must Watch feature. This article was then written and reviewed by a BBC journalist. More on how the BBC uses AI.