My Brilliant Friend, Killing Eve and Save Me were among the highlights in a vintage year for drama. See our top 10 dramas below
• Read the Observer critics’ review of 2018 in full here
The standout aspect of 2018 on television was simply the proliferation of wonderful drama. I’ve had to exclude so much blistering merit from my own (highly subjective, as ever) top 10. So Bodyguard doesn’t (quite) make it, despite holding people rapt over August and September and reminding us what destination TV used to be. Similarly, Saga Norén has sadly had to bid farewell relatively unheralded. At least she got what counts, in the world of The Bridge, as a happy ending. We’ll miss her more than we yet know.
Real-life issues were tackled with great empathy, often with redemptive humour. Mother’s Day (BBC Two) had Anna Maxwell Martin nicely underplaying her role as Wendy Parry, who lost her son Tim in the 1993 Warrington IRA bombing; a truly memorable drama. And in a year in which transgender issues were often debated, I thought playwright Tony Marchant made a subtle, brave, funny and ultimately successful addition to the conversation in Butterfly. The Cry, while in the end moving on to a different story, will for long years mesmerise mothers with the simple horror of a screaming baby on a long-haul. The Mighty Redcar was a joy.
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