# Eternal Law (ITV)



## Anthony G Williams (Jan 29, 2012)

*Eternal Law* is a six-part ITV series by Ashley Pharoah and Matthew Graham, the creators of the marvellous *Life on Mars* and *Ashes to Ashes*. It features Samuel West and Ukweli Roach as angels who have been sent down to Earth (to be specific, the city of York) in human form to help people - as lawyers! They are assisted by the always-impressive Orla Brady, whose character had given up her angelic status to live as a human, and opposed by a fallen angel in the form of another lawyer, played by Tobias Menzies. To complicate matters, the fallen angel's human assistant (Hattie Morahan) had been the love of the Samuel West character's life in (literally) his former incarnation, but she doesn't recognise him.

The result is a strange mixture of fantasy, comedy, and sometimes emotional courtroom drama. Although I've now seen four of them I still can't decide how well this all gels, but it's intriguing enough to keep me watching. Compared with LoM and AtA, it suffers from the lack of a charismatic lead equivalent to Philip Glenister's Gene Hunt. Best summed up as rather whimsical light entertainment.

(An extract from my SFF blog)


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