Radio Times Top 40 TV Shows of 2016: 40 to 31
The votes have been counted and the results are in... here's our critics' countdown of the year's best telly
36. Murdered by My Father (BBC3)
A follow-up of sorts to the Bafta-winning Murdered by My Boyfriend: a real and urgent social problem was again highlighted by way of a one-off drama that ached with terrible inevitability. This time it was "honour killing". The title, and the hammer blow of the stark opening flash-forward, told us that Salma (Kiran Sonia Sawar) would be murdered by her father (Adeel Akhtar). Yet as the story of Salma falling in love having been “promised” to a different man took shape, Vinay Patel’s script and some astonishing performances created a drama that was as much about the glory of the love being denied as it was about religious and cultural dogma overwhelming a weak and cowardly man – watching, we couldn’t accept what we knew to be true, and we grieved when it happened. Exemplary socially conscious programming – BBC3 at its best. Jack Seale
