Roadkill

Yes, it is too mannered and expositional to be realistic (in this way it reminded me of Bodyguard), but it is welcome immersive escapism and not nearly as earnest and improbable as Hare's last offering, Collateral.

You can’t help but warm to Laurie and McCrory, venal as their characters are, because they project such intelligence. ... It’s competently put together and the plot draws you in. ... This feels like a drama from an earlier time, with a traditional left-wing heart. However outlandish the fictional scheming on display, the real world is crazier, and we’ve seen this kind of conspiracy too many times before.

Much of the show’s appeal lies in its embrace of the familiar. The gruff, macho newspaper editor (Pip Torrens); the fragile, neglected wife (Saskia Reeves); the chafing, unsatisfied mistress (Sidse Babett Knudsen)—we know them well. But Hare, dazzled by the buffet of tropes available to him, can’t keep himself from loading up his tray. ... What kept me watching was Laurie.

In other seasons and other shows, this sort of rake is an easy charmer, a solid sell. After watching all four hours of "Roadkill," I'm not so sure if Laurie's efforts to channel that kind of magic works as well here. ... While it attempts to say something about the dangerousness of banal characters and the people around them, it doesn't quite make that case in a clear and compelling away.

Laurie (“House, M.D.”; “Veep”) is just about the only reason to get into “Roadkill,” writer David Hare’s quick-moving but often ridiculously convoluted drama.

It’s not an entirely unpleasant four-hour journey that Mr. Hare has mapped out, or one without a zinger ending, though much of what happens beforehand seems the result of narrative expediency; characters conform to the plot, rather than consistency. ... If a viewer were to walk away from “Roadkill” with a sense of moral and narrative confusion, it would hardly be surprising.