TV series reviews: The Bear & The Newsreader

 For your consideration today, two reviews for the price of one. The Bear and The Newsreader. 

Not only do both series have a strong cast and gripping scripts for each and every episode but both also open the curtains for us to have a peek behind the scenes of a world usually off limits for mere mortals. We only see the finished product but here we see the shouting matches fuelled by emotional energy, impassioned speeches, tears, hugs and luck of the moment that brings it all together to make it work, that of a high end restaurant and the newsroom respectively.

Both worlds also have that sense of the "other" family bond, strengthened by joint victories and triumphs and sour moments of failures made less painful by those in the room, bonded together through thick and thin to make a perfected dish or news television broadcast. 

And indeed, they are not only fighting each other but up against the world, nameless - if not faceless, critics, ever judging, never silent and always on guard for even the slightest weakness.

In the Bear, there is always that feeling for most, if not all, the characters that the rug is about to be yanked out from under their feet. That feeling means that if you're not ready for it, you have to be and that attitude forms part of the characters' arcs and reactions to what life is about to throw at them. There is the family history and present dramas tugging at the seams and threatening to destroy what little remains of their sanity, not to mention overall happiness.

The Newsreaders' characters have both their on screen persona and what they keep hidden from the rest of the world, if not their colleagues and friends. And as this latter series is set in the eighties, a time when mental health awareness was a few decades away and workplace respect was given to the owners, not expected for anyone else, one needed to develop a hard shell, quicker rather than later. And as the series illustrates, just one decade had a lot of news and news itself was changing in the way it was shown to the world.

The resulting drama is definitely one that deserves watching, you may want to look away but you cannot because it draws you in and keeps you hooked and on tenterhooks.

Both are highly deserving of the highest accolades due to them, both those acting in front of the camera and the crew behind it. And a third season from them both would be welcomed. Special mention must go to Ebon Moss-Bachrach, his character's growth was something to behold. Also to Stephen Peacocke and Michelle Lim Davison, supporting characters are essential in fleshing out the story and they do it in spades.