The Crown: Season 2, Episode 7- Matrimonium

"As in art, so, it would appear, in life..."

Again we have a Margaret episode and, again, there is much subtlety and character development. Like ast episode, the plot is simple; Margaret is to marry Tony who, we now see, is sectretly carrying on polyamorous relationships with both sexes and, moreover, is rather more damaged than he might appear. Yet Elizabeth, even after hearing the truth from Tommy Lascelles- again brought out of retirement to do what Michael cannot- is unable, after what happened with Peter Townsend, to say no. And the baby to whom she gives birth here will one day be mixed up with sexual doings that are a thousand times worse.

The episode abounds, as ever, with lovely character moments on which we can dwell as we hope that Margaret won't get hurt. The scene between Margaret and Elizabeth at the end is fascinating- Margaret wants freedom and independence, and is marrying this man as part of that. Yet she, unlike the Queen, enjos the titles and the deference and will never give up those things- a necessary precondition for any royal to break free of their life sentence in a gilded cage.

We get an outburst from Philip, last season a victim of snobbery himself, yet looking down on Tony who, unlike hilself, is not the grandson of a king and a prince in his own right. Fascinatingly, we learn that the womanising Tony is the son of a vaguely neglectful mother who left his commoner father to marry an earl, and his younger half-brother outranks him- until he marries Margaret. Deliciously, we hear this as Tony, along with the Frys with whom he is having a bisexual menage a trois, watches the results of the 1959 election as Supermac crushes all before him in a country that has never had it so good.

It is also jarring to see Macmillan lead the Cabinet in prayer upon hearing of the royal baby. 1959 was a different world, albeit a changing one, more religious than ours on the surface- but perhaps not much deeper than that; and where conservative social mores on the surface are not applied to the discreet elite.

A superb hour of drama, as always.

Doctor Who: Knock Knock

"Landline??? What is this- Scotland?"

So that's four good episodes in a row for this quietly impressive season; we get a solid bit of teatime horror from Mike Bartlett, a writer new to Who but not to telly, more top chemistry from Bill and a bizarrely Tom-like Doctor, Hercule Poirot being splendidly sinister, and a satisfying and emotional conclusion. It's a story-of-the-week, yes, but that's what Doctor Who should be.

As with Clara, Bill maintains her life when not travelling in the TARDIS- a bit of a Moffat-era trope- and we're introduced to her uni housemates; it's interesting to ponder whether we'll be seeing any of them. It's too soon to get to know any of them yet, though, even if one of them is supposed to be Harry Sullivan's grandson. We know, of course, that this spacious luxury house offered as a student house at a knock-down price is going to come with a catch, but the fun is in the finding out, and fun it is. We get a kind of slasher narrative with the big alien woodlice (Are they alien or not? For the second episode in a row it's left deliberately ambiguous whether or not the monster is in fact just an undiscovered terrestrial beast. Is this an arc thing?) picking off flatmates one by one, but the fact they are all restored keeps things nicely kid-friendly. And the resolution is genuinely excellent. The episode as a whole is a subtle masterclass in how to write and structure an episode of television.

I like the obvious throwback to Susan early on, with Bill pretending the Doctor is her "grandfather", and her embarrassment at his hanging around in her fourth-wall breaking way ("Basically this is the bit of my life that you're not in"), and I love Bill's characteristic skewering of Time Lord pomposity as soon as she hears them mentioned. It's a good opportunity to seed the idea of regeneration early in the season though.

The end contains a half-revelation: the Vault appears to contain a person, or at any rate something both able to play Beethoven on the piano and with an interest in gory stories. I think I may have an idea of who it might be...