Ordinary Lies final episode, review: Series format is so tired it needs a rest

Episode six: There’s bound to be a second series of Ordinary Lies, but it needs to be braver

Beth (played by Jo Joyner) in BBC1's Ordinary Lies (BBC)

This is tired television. There’s nothing wrong with it, not really, in the same way that there’s nothing wrong with a table from Ikea or a meal out at Wagamama. It’s perfectly good, excellent in parts.

But Danny Brocklehurst’s human (oh so human) interest drama Ordinary Lies is tired and everyone involved deserves to be aiming higher than this. It’s high class soap opera, low rent Mike Leigh. It’s Jimmy McGovern with a safe word.

There have been highlights along the way, particularly the episodes detailing the misadventures of Mackenzie Crook’s sad-sack ‘Paracetamol’ Pete and Shazad Latif’s cocky grease monkey Rick (who you may have recognised as Toast’s cult hero, Clem Fandango).

Every performance, right up to the closing moments as Robert Pugh stormed in with a lovely cameo as the loadsamoney car showroom owner, has been pitch perfect. The storylines have been well handled, balanced and engaging. The casting is faultless. The dialogue convincing and light of touch.

And this is the problem – it’s too perfect, too glossy, too textbook. The whole series has been like a training manual for rookie BBC drama writers – make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry, cast Shaun Dooley as a gruff northern bloke on his uppers. For a series all about secrets and lies there was far too much that was predictable, with tonight’s finale perhaps the biggest disappointment of all as Beth’s (Jo Joyner) missing husband Dave heaved back into view.

As we knew what was coming – Beth had just moved on in her life, into the arms of boss Mike (Max Beesley), and her happiness was built up for a fall – this was an opportunity to give the audience something different. Personally, I’d have been happy if the whole episode had been nothing but Jo Joyner and Shaun Dooley arguing in a potting shed. However, Ordinary Lies is so on-the-nose that the ensuing dramatics had to run their course. Beth cried, Dave shouted, Mike chewed his fist.

I did enjoy some of the first exchanges after Beth had tracked down runaway Dave to a farm in Kent, where he’d been scraping a living as a fruit picker. ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded. ‘Picking fruit’ he answered. This was a dash of wry humour that the whole series could have stood a lot more of. After that Dave said sorry a lot, mumbled something about being stressed at work, and then, to show us he was getting himself back together, shaved off his ‘nervous breakdown’ beard.

This is well made, well intentioned television by a raft of talented people. But it’s tired and needs a rest. There’s bound to be a second series of Ordinary Lies, which has been well received, and, despite my misgivings, it deserves one. I’d just ask for something more next time round. Mix things up – surprise us, cast against type, trust your audience, set an entire episode in a potting shed, be brave.