SERIES REVIEW: Platform 7

Writing a review of this four-part ITVX series without giving away too much is virtually impossible, so I must reiterate the spoiler warning: they really are everywhere in this review.

So… I was looking forward to this one. It promised to be something a little bit different, and had some fine pedigree in front of and behind the camera: the tremendous, firecracker talent that is Jasmine Jobson in the lead, role and the legendary Phil Davis also appears, while behind the camera the series is based on the bestseller by Louise Doughty.

It all starts on, yes, Platform 7. We see Lisa (Jobson) walk up and down the platform in what looks like her pyjamas, giggling at the late-night security staff as they play cards and make their checks like they’re old friends. Lisa looks misplaced somehow, like she shouldn’t be there, but at the same time, she looks at home inside the station. We soon find out why – she’s dead, and the station is where her ghost, her current spiritual form lives.

Right away you’re aware that this is no ordinary crime drama, and it was proclaiming a high concept right from the get-go. But still, I was willing to give this a go… you never know, it might provide something different and interesting, and with this cast at work I would probably watch it do anything.

Into Lisa’s domain comes a man called Edward (Davis) who decides to end it all on platform seven by hurling himself off the platform into the path of an oncoming train. Lisa tries her best to save him, or at least to persuade him to not go through with his suicide, but she’s… well, she’s a ghost and living people cannot hear the dead speak.

Edward then joins Lisa as a ghost on the platform and they begin to talk. He is angry and bitter and will not discuss why he took his own life (which immediately makes us think that he’s something awful), while Lisa explains that she also took her own life, but nothing ever quite seems right about it and she can’t remember the details (which then immediately makes us think that there’s something more to Lisa’s demise than a suicide).

At this point, I have to mention that both Lisa and Edward cannot leave the station – there’s some sort of weird forcefield that keeps them imprisoned within its confines.

However, and it’s not really explained adequately, Lisa suddenly finds herself able to leave. Not only that but fragments of her old life begin to pop up in her head.

Naturally, she wants to see the people from her old life straight away. She visits her mum and dad, still grief-stricken, some old pals and her then partner, Matt – an oily A&E doctor. Straight away, you begin to think this guy’s no good, and as Lisa follows him around she begins to (conveniently) remember more and more about her old life with him. The perfect couple soon turn into the perfect nightmare, with flashbacks and remembered memories confirming that Matt specialised in pernicious, horrid coercive control. Soon, after a honeymoon period, he put the squeeze on Lisa, making her life utter hell.

Concurrent to Lisa’s investigation into her own demise is a young, kindly transport policeman called Akash, who becomes obsessed with the case and conducts his own investigation in the world of the living. You’d think that somehow, both might converge and in some clever way they would work together until Lisa gets the justice she deserves. But it doesn’t quite work out like that, and instead Lisa – inexplicably finding that some of her human, corporeal qualities returning (she can now smash things up, touch things etc) – decides to haunt the living heck out of Matt. And that’s where it crossed the line for me. It could have been interesting, and it could have seen Akash bring Matt to justice rather than Lisa.

I know this was a crime drama with heavy supernatural elements and you had to suspend a lot of disbelief in the first place to go along with it, but at least having Akash properly serve Matt justice would have kept it just about on the side of plausible. Sadly no.

Instead we got Lisa – A GHOST – leaving on a train to somewhere new at the end of it all.

So a bit daft, with the thinnest of paper-thin scripts and a conceit that became more and more ridiculous as it went along. Which is a shame because it’s always a pleasure to see rising star Jobson at work.

There were good moments. When Lisa first explored her former world after leaving the station, it was genuinely moving to watch her get to grips with her new(ish) existence, while the people most important to her were still processing their grief. And the story of Edward and his son and daughter was also genuinely moving and interesting (and shocking). It’s just a shame their side story was wrapped up at the end of episode two.

All in all, probably not a series to get onboard with.

Paul Hirons

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Platform 7 is shown in the UK on ITVX and will broadcast on ITV1 next year.