Van der Valk
Ancient Egypt by train
Your appetizer for ten, pop students. What do these people have in common: James Coburn, Michael Parkinson, Kenny Lynch, Clement Freud, John Conteh and Christopher Lee?
Dressed in black and caught in a spotlight, they are the criminal gang trying to escape on the cover of Paul McCartney’s Wings album Band On The Run, half a century ago.
The scene was faithfully recreated, apparently by accident, in Van Der Valk (ITV1), when the Dutch detective rounded up a gang of ‘freerunners’ – urban athletes who used their running and jumping talents to extract shipments of drugs from shipyard containers.
They made less-than-convincing fugitives, pinned in police headlights to a six-foot fence and frozen in place — unable to clear a hurdle, let alone jump bail.
The scene was faithfully recreated, apparently by accident, in Van Der Valk (ITV1), when the Dutch detective rounded up a gang of ‘freerunners’
They made less-than-convincing fugitives, pinned in police headlights to a 6-foot fence and frozen in place — unable to clear a hurdle, let alone jump bail
The whole episode was strange and unbelievable. It was as if someone had a vision of the police chasing a bunch of dodgy gymnasts and didn’t know what else to do with this bright idea.
When a sniper opened fire on a patient through a hospital window, Commissioner Van Der Valk (Marc Warren) came to the aid of the girl by pulling the cotton curtain around her bed. Bulletproof curtains – you don’t get those on the NHS.
Half an hour later, saxophonist Hendrik (Darrell D’Silva) began a long and repetitive explanation of how a bullet can penetrate two layers of bone. He didn’t tell us why gunfire bounces off cotton.
Even more improbably, new recruit Eddie (Azan Ahmed) challenged Van Der Valk to an open-air chess game and beat him, announcing mate in four – but fell silent when his boss doubted his word.
Every chess enthusiast knows that if a player can force checkmate, nothing in the world will prevent him from proving it. Sweep the pieces away, hide the board, put your fingers in your ears… he’ll find a way to force you to admit he won.
The two-hour show lost its last shred of credibility just after the halfway point, when Eddie casually revealed he was vegan.
This was clearly not true. No vegan in history has ever waited this long to announce the fact.
That’s all a shame, because the Amsterdam sets are just as picturesque as ever and the script by writer Chris Murray is interspersed with handsome lines.
Django Chan-Reeves as Sergeant Citra Li, the team’s other newcomer, sauntered into a bar and asked for a “triple venti sweet no-fat caramel macchiato.” What she got was coffee like kart oil, with a splash of vodka.
And when Van Der Valk was asked to take Sergeant Li under his wing, he replied, “I’m a detective, not a hen.”
Four vulture goddesses took King Tutenkhamun under their wing and spread their feathered arms around his sarcophagus, as archaeologist Alice Roberts discovered while exploring ancient Egypt by train (Chapter 4)
This fascinating series has proven that no one can bring dusty ruins to life better than Prof. Alice
Four vulture goddesses took King Tutenkhamun under their wing and spread their feathered arms around his sarcophagus, as archaeologist Alice Roberts discovered when she explored ancient Egypt by train (Chapter 4).
We think of vultures as preying on the dead. But in the time of the pharaohs, they were protectors, she explained – pointing to Queen Nefertari’s headdress, which encased her in a pair of finely worked wings.
This fascinating series has proven that no one can bring dusty ruins to life better than Prof. Alice. As she delved into the tomb of King Seti, who lived more than 3,000 years ago, she gasped, “What incredible artists! I’m just blown away by the artisans who made this.’
But the most extraordinary snippet of them all was casually dropped into the show by Prof. Sarah Parcak, who noted that Pharaoh Pepi II reigned for over 90 years.
He lived to be 100. That’s very old to be a mummy for the first time.