Must Watch reviews: The Cage, Unchosen, and Secret Service

Every week, the Must Watch podcasters review the biggest TV and streaming shows.

This week, Hayley Campbell and Scott Campbell join Naga Munchetty to review ‘The Cage’, ‘Unchosen’ and ‘Secret Service’.

What do the Must Watch reviewers make of them?

The Cage is a five part crime thriller from Tony Schumacher, who brought us The Responder. This drama is about two casino employees, Matty (played by Michael Socha) and Leanne (played by Sheridan Smith), who have both been stealing from the same casino where they work, a revelation which sets them on a collision course into the world of crime.

Scott thinks The Cage is a Must Watch but Hayley disagrees.

Scott said the show provides “really rich, detailed characters and you see their flaws but also themselves as a whole person, you actually believe they are real.”

“It's managing to tap into societal problems in a way that doesn't feel too issue-led, it's still led by the story.”

He says the show has an original hook by having both protagonists stealing from their employer at the same time.

“I think the way that this drama manages to, in the same way as The Responder, talk about quite important topics and make a state of the nation piece but never lose track of the fact that it is a compelling story. That’s what makes it work for me.”

Hayley explains that the show is “about the things that drove them to it: all the bills mounting up, the threat of eviction, the gambling addiction, and both of them having this black shame around all of it.”

But she didn’t like that “it was relentlessly bleak to the point of everyone being kind of annoying.”

“Everyone's robbing each other, everyone's failing each other. Everyone's lying. The only one who's not lying has dementia.”

She adds, “I feel like I've seen Sheridan Smith do a role like this, maybe nine times.”

“I think it was really well‑done. I just personally didn't want to spend any more time in this world.”

You can watch all episodes of The Cage now on BBC iPlayer

Unchosen is created and written by Julie Gearey, and inspired by real-life experiences in high-control religious communities in the UK. It follows the ultra conservative patriarchal community run by Mr. Phillips (played by Christopher Eccleston). Rosie - played by Molly Windsor - is in an abusive relationship with Adam (played by Asa Butterfield), but then a mysterious stranger called Sam (played by Fra Fee) turns up.

Both Hayley and Scott do not think Unchosen is a Must Watch.

Hayley says, “Some of the acting outside of Christopher Eccleston and Siobhan Finneran is so bad, to the point of distraction, that I found it really hard to stick with this.”

She says it has similarities to The Handmaid’s Tale which makes it “predictable” and a “forgettable show”.

“I'm not sure exactly how they got Eccleston and Finneran involved in it because, having seen it now, I think it's kind of beneath them.”

Hayley says that whilst the show is supposed to be a psychological thriller, “it got a bit too silly to be anything deep enough to qualify as psychological.”

Scott says, “I feel the ingredients are all here for a good show, and you can tell that there's been a lot of research into how these communities work and operate”.

He likes the way the show “looks at the perspective of what it is like to grow up within a cult, where this has been normal throughout your whole life”.

“So there is a storm in the opening sequence of the first episode, the kid immediately just assumes it's going to be the end of the world rather than it just being a summer storm.”

But Scott found that whilst the “cinematography and characters” initially drew him to the show, “the plot for me just felt a bit short”.

All episodes of Unchosen are available to watch now on Netflix

Secret Service stars Gemma Arterton as a British intelligence officer who races against time to uncover a UK politician's potential ties with the Kremlin, risking her reputation and family, as a murder and election looms.

Scott and Hayley do not think Secret Service is a Must Watch.

Scott says, “It feels as if every few months we have an ITV intelligence thriller involving somebody who's got a home life that gets depicted on screen, who has to work out what's happening within their own government, or has a link to something international.”

He says the show is “well done” but does not feel like “anything new”.

“It looks very smooth, sophisticated. Sometimes I find that if you lean into that a little bit too hard it ends up looking a little bit cold and it ends looking a bit distant and I've found for me it does in that way.”

Scott explains that he “thought it was going to be something a bit more special than it ended up being”.

Hayley says, “I didn't like it either”.

She describes the show as “stiff and unemotional.”

“I actually found the scenes with Rafe Spall, who plays Arterton's husband, were the only parts where I was really interested because that's where it got a bit human. He doesn't know what her job is specifically. She's not allowed to tell him. And so it was just a lot of domestic nonsense going on between them.”

Hayley says it was “a bit boring and plodding with occasional flashes of a nice sunny location”.

“I feel like we've reviewed this show a million times.”

All episodes of Secret Service are available to watch now on ITVX

Listen to the full reviews of all three programmes on BBC Sounds.

But before all that, why not contact Scott and Hayley with the shows you’ve been loving, loathing or both on mustwatch@bbc.co.uk.

We used AI to transcribe and summarise our Must Watch feature. This article was then written and reviewed by a BBC journalist. More on how the BBC uses AI.