On the face of it, Beth seemed that most old-fashioned of TV genres: the single play. In fact, Monday’s programme was the complete version of a three-parter made for YouTube and excitedly announced as Channel 4’s first-ever digital commission. A less excited interpretation, however, might be that it was Channel 4’s first sign of surrender to the hostile forces of streaming now threatening all of Britain’s terrestrial networks. Either way, it was a peculiar watch that, over the course of its 36 minutes, felt less like a fully fledged drama than notes towards one.
In a nervous bid to ensure YouTube viewers were gripped before they could search for something else, it began with a good-looking couple having sex. But not for long. Within 50 seconds, the man, Joe, noticed blood on the sheets and the woman, Molly, realised she’d had the latest in a series of miscarriages. Seconds after that, the pair were visiting their hunky private doctor who advised them to knock off the IVF, in favour of ‘lots of sex’: advice he bestowed with a distinct leer in Molly’s direction.
Following the consultation, Joe and Molly (Nicholas Pinnock and Abbey Lee) wondered about adoption or fostering, but as an interracial couple, decided they wanted ‘our kid to look like both of us’. In one of these ‘notes towards’ moments, it also appeared that Joe himself had been unhappily fostered. But of course there wasn’t time to get into that and instead the first 12-minute section ended with Molly suddenly pregnant.
Once she was, there were some more hints at a theme the show would clearly have liked to explore in more depth, in this case Joe’s class unease about having a much posher partner.
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