The Second Coming (TV Serial) - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

Critical reaction to the production was generally positive. The Observer newspaper's reviewer, Kathryn Flett, said that "the boldness of the subject matter was complemented by a script of considerable depth and humour, and there were performances of Bafta-grabbing brilliance from everybody involved" . She particularly praised the performances of the two leads: "Christopher Eccleston, never knowingly under-intense, was perfectly cast as the Everybloke suddenly gifted with the ability to provide answers to the big questions and perform medium-sized miracles... Sharp, burdened (or perhaps liberated?) by bad hair and make-up for most of the film proved herself yet again to be one of Britain's finest actresses."

The Daily Mail reviewer Peter Paterson was equally positive, commenting that: "There's nothing TV executives like less than having to field endless complaints by outraged viewers, and last night's proceedings will attract them in swarms. To invite such protest by screening something as provocative and out of the usual rut of ITV1's standard fare is certainly courageous." In The Times, Paul Hoggart's verdict on the first episode was that: "It is intelligent, often amusing, and, at times, passionate and provocative. It throws down a gauntlet to religion, especially in tonight's conclusion, and something happens at the end which is probably deeply blasphemous... There are some clunks and bumps in the script, but most are smoothed over by excellent acting."

Writing in The Guardian to preview the drama before it aired, Mark Lawson said that: "Transmuting different genres like wine made from water — comedy into romance into thriller — Eccleston, Sharp, Davies and his director Adrian Shergold have created a world in which it soon ceases to seem odd that God chose Manchester. Steve only knows how they did it, but they have." Commenting on the US showing on BBC America, New York Magazine reviewer John Leonard called it "...an interesting argument about the cost benefits of the possible death of God. Rough, rude, and wonderfully acted."

The Second Coming featured in two major categories at the 2004 British Academy Television Awards, the most important TV awards ceremony in the UK. In the Best Actor category Christopher Eccleston lost out to Bill Nighy (for State of Play) while the production itself was beaten by Charles II: The Power and The Passion in the Best Drama Serial category.

Delivering the Huw Wheldon Lecture at the Royal Television Society's annual convention in Cambridge in September 2005, Paul Abbott praised The Second Coming as one of the few genuinely innovative British television drama productions of recent years, describing it as: "...a television masterpiece. It grappled with the most colossal subject matter in the return of a messiah to earth. Not in a Robert Powell way. Modern earth. Manchester, actually. And mainly the scruffy end."