Quietly radiates a wholly justified confidence: BBC 1’s The Pact reviewed

There was certainly no lack of variety among new TV dramas this week, with a standard British thriller up against more glamorous American competition in the shape of some extravagant Victorian sci-fi and an adaption by an Oscar-winning director of a Pulitzer-winning novel. (All three, mind you, did naturally feature a one-dimensional white bloke as the embodiment of sexist and/or racist villainy.) The surprising thing at this stage is that it’s the plucky British show that looks most promising.

The Pact began, like many a thriller before it, with a frightened woman running through some dark woods. So far we still don’t know why — unless it was just force of TV habit. Then again, this is a programme that’s in no hurry to divulge its secrets, with the big revelations deployed mainly as end-of-episode cliffhangers.

Somehow pleasingly, the action kicked off with a piss-up in a brewery. (Cue several shots of people having several shots.)