The BBC’s best thriller has never been stronger – it’s being let down
I’m often asked what I’m watching right now and, for the last three weeks, I’ve basically been vomiting enthusiasm about The Capture – telling anyone who’ll listen about my love for the show and assuming that friends will confirm that they too, are hooked.
When it first launched in 2019,The Capturewas a slow-burning success. Its debut series eventually drew in more than five million viewers – a rare feat for any new thriller.
It also launched the career of the manhotly tipped to be the next James Bond,Callum Turner, who was nominated for a BAFTA for his performance.
Yet it never quite broke into the cultural conversation in the way it should have.
With the same hype afforded to shows likeLine of Dutyor the recent returnof The Night Manager,The Capture could have been a genuine water-cooler phenomenon with the potential to spark genuine intellectual debate.
Instead, it’s remained strangely under-discussed, with a shrinking but loyal following – despite being more relevant now than ever.
Starring Holliday Graingeras abrasive detective Rachel Carey, the series centres on an alarmingly plausible premise: a world where technology can manipulate CCTV and digital evidence so convincingly that truth itself becomes unreliable.
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Seven years ago, The Capture sounded far-fetched, the idea of doctored footage becoming impossible to distinguish from reality was dismissed by some as absurd.
Now, deepfakes are everywhere – fromTikTokto political misinformation – and the idea that video evidence can no longer be trusted is no longer fiction. It is around us every single day.
That’s what makes The Capture so extraordinary. It hasn’t just kept up with the zeitgeist- it’s predicted it.
When it felt like there was nowhere left for the show to go, its second series pushed its chilling concept even further, depicting falsified live broadcasts used to manipulate publicopinionand elections.
Now in its third outing, currently airing Sundays on BBC One, the show is firing on all cylinders and has never been better. The opening episode saw Carey witness a shooting, only for the man she saw pull the trigger to later become her colleague.
This time, we can’t even trust her eyewitness account that has guided us since the beginning, and it’s the most disoriented I’ve felt watching a thriller in a very long time.
Overnight viewing figures have been an undeniable disappointment. The first episode drew in 1.84 million on launch night.
Though that will inevitably climb with streams on iPlayer, it’s well below the viewership that a primetime Sunday night thriller will be aiming for. In comparison, the last series of Line of Duty, which is returning this year, averaged 16 million per episode in 2021.
It’s certainly not losing viewers because of its writing, acting or ambition – but because of how it’s being positioned. Every Sunday morning, a new episode quietly launches on iPlayer before the main broadcast at 9pm on BBC One.
Instead of this Netflix-style drop, the show would benefit from being held back for the collective live viewing experience, complete with chatter on social media.
Last night’s installment was a humongous moment for fans who have been there from the beginning. Yet I have seen barely a whisper online dissecting the jaw-dropping twist.
The BBC meekly launched another one of its shining stars earlier this year too, in the highly anticipated and utterly brilliantLord of the Flies, adapted by Adolescence’s Jack Thorne. It was anabsolute triumph, but all episodes whimpered onto iPlayer one Sunday morning ahead of transmission.
It seemed to be largely forgotten about thereafter, quickly dropping in ratings by nearly 1 million.
More than ever, The Capture is a series that should be dominating the national conversation. It should be dissected on breakfast television, debated in Parliament, and sweeping awards season.
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Instead, it’s quietly slipping under the radar and will inevitably land on the chopping block as viewing figures continue to shrivel. It feels like there’s been hardly any drive to push it into the same league as other jewels in the BBC’s crown of thrillers.
At the time of writing, which is the morning after The Capture’s latest episode aired, it’s trailing behind EastEnders and the entirety of The Other Bennett Sister (which has been available for more than a week) on iPlayer’s top 10.
Granted, one is a 40-year-old juggernaut in itself and the other was given a huge push by the BBC so both are commendable front-runners.
But compare the build-up to the launch of The Capture to the rollout of anything from Jed Mercurio, the brains behind Line of Duty, Trigger Point, and Breathtaking. These shows ensure anticipation is built months in advance and every twist becomes headline news.
Granted, Mercurio brings name value, but The Capture is three seasons in with huge acclaim, and its own title should be more than enough for the BBC to give it an equally substantial following.
The Capture isn’t just good. It’s the smartest, most forward-thinking thriller the BBC has ever produced.
The real mystery is why the BBC still isn’t treating it like the phenomenon it so clearly deserves to be.
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Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailingRoss.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk.
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