This twisted dance between sly killer and obsessed detective is enthralling: CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Channel 5's The Game

Have YOU got a story? Email tips@dailymail.co.uk See more Daily Mail on Google - save us as a Preferred Source Published: 17:45 EDT, 2 September 2026 | Updated: 17:47 EDT, 2 September 2026 The Game (Channel 5)Rating: Four stars Rating:Hallmark cards ought to do a special 'In Sympathy' line for actors who thought they were going to appear in the second series of a drama, only to be abruptly written out.'We're sorry that you have to go,/ It must have been a shock./ You counted on a pay day but/ Instead you're off the clock./ Whether it was a car crash,/ Disease or lost at sea,/ We'll remember you in flashbacks/ For a much diminished fee.'It looked as though Jason Watkins might be the one who failed to come back for season two of The Game. First time round, he played a retired detective, convinced his creepy neighbour Patrick (Robson Green) was a serial killer known as the Ripton Stalker.The psychological thriller ended last year with his character, Huw, half-dead from stab wounds, his wife, Alice (Sunetra Sarker), beside him in the ambulance pleading, 'Stay with me!'But it was Sunetra who dropped off the cast list as The Game returned. She made the classic mistake of going for a walk on her own along a narrow country lane, while chatting on the phone to her husband. It looked as though Jason Watkins might be the one who failed to come back for season two of The Game... but he's back for this new runIn a Channel 5 drama, no one survives that.Alice looked over her shoulder to see a stunt car being driven quite slowly and carefully towards her. The camera zoomed in to her expression of rigid horror. And... cut!Next thing you know, Huw is cradling her lifeless body, and by the time the next ad break is over, they've had the funeral.But Patrick can't be responsible this time, can he? No matter how devious his twisted mind, how manipulative his sly lies, how charming yet eerily unsettling his smile, he's behind bars. Surely he cannot project his evil beyond the walls of his cell.He doesn't need to. He's got prison officer Jackie (Tanya Franks) to do that for him.She's besotted with him and, as it turns out, equally good at menacing stares, burglary and all the other stock tricks a crazed killer requires.Patrick sits in his cell, writing poisonous threatening letters to Huw, who stands in his study, pinning newspaper clippings and photos to the wall, and connecting them with coloured threads.The second episode opened with a face-to-face interview in the prison visiting room that was even more claustrophobic and gripping than the confrontations last time round — probably because they were physically even closer, knee to knee. As long as The Game keeps delivering its set pieces between Huw and Patrick, I'll want to keep watchingIt could be read as a clever metaphor for addiction. 'Just one more time,' pleads Huw, begging to be allowed to investigatePatrick again. 'He's in my head!'Or you could simply enjoy it for the sheer schlock value, and the plot devices that ensure the two men are constantly dancing around each other. As long as The Game keeps delivering its set pieces between Huw and Patrick, I'll want to keep watching.Last knockings of the night: Not content with squeezing two episodes of extra footage from their chat show The Assembly, ITV are now putting ten-minute collections of more out-takes on YouTube, calling it The B-Sides.Hasn't that barrel been scraped enough already?