Masali Baduza

Jack Rowan

Helen Baxendale

Shaun Dingwall

Jonathan Ajayi

Josh Dylan

Richard Wright-Firth

Malorie Blackman

Drama

Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Episode 4

Noughts + Crosses

BBC One

United Kingdom

**SEASON ONE REVIEW:**
<br />Season Rating: 7/10
<br />Overall Rating: 7/10

Strong enough first season.

I don't love <em>'Noughts + Crosses'</em>, at least not yet, but it is still an opening season that I did enjoy sufficiently. The concept is no doubt an interesting and fairly complex one, it throws up interesting scenarios and thoughts. With that said, for season two, I hope they are a bit more neater with the real life parallels. A lot of them here do feel very forced, particularly the "blanca" thing. I can certainly see what they're attempting but as a programme it needs to be a bit more creative - and not just rely on the real world.

The noughts/crosses thing itself is cool, though part of me feels like they could've left it in the title/credits and that's it. It goes with what I said a moment ago, it comes across as forced - especially across the opening few episodes. It isn't a difficult thing to understand, so we don't need it repeated so often - in my opinion, it would've been way better if it was subtly left in the title/credits.

Cast-wise it's decent. Masali Baduza (Sephy) is the best actor onscreen, I thoroughly enjoyed her whole performance across the six episodes. I also liked Jonathan Ajayi, as Lekan, despite the obvious; he plays his character very well. Jack Rowan (Callum) is the best of the rest, though Paterson Joseph (Kamal), Helen Baxendale (Meggie) and Shaun Dingwall (Dorn) are solid too.

A bit more subtlety and creativity would go a long way, so hopefully they improve in those regards in season two; assuming it happens, which I hope it does. All in all, very much worth a watch.

Noughts + Crosses

Love is never black and white.

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