Everyone says the Season 7 finale of fantasy epic The Ninth Circle was pretty disappointing. But not everyone thinks that it has to be the end of the matter.

It would be telling to watch a reaction video of Game of Thrones’ show runners David Benioff and D B Weiss watching this episode of Inside No. 9, just to see if they shouted at the screen ‘Yes, this!’ Focusing on the toxic phenomena of entitled fans who think they are in the position to demand a new ending to a series that didn’t meet their own preferences, fictional drama The Ninth Circle is clearly a thinly-disguised version of Game of Thrones.

As recently as the last months when Jed Mercurio’s In the Line of Duty season finale was subjected to a sortie of social media discontent, some fans now feel that they know better and have the right to dictate what should happen in the narrative.

Spenser Maguire (Steve Pemberton) is visited at his home by obsessive fan Simon Smethurst (Reece Shearsmith). He has a recording of the moment where the show creator pushes a fan away, and this video is used as leverage to blackmail him.

I’ll say no more of the plot, as it’s the twists and turns that drive the story from hereon in. It’s so well observed that one can only assume that the writers have suffered their own abuse from discontent fans. Lindsay Duncan is great fun as Maguire’s flaky agent – she doesn’t actually watch any of his programmes – and the ending feels appropriate, throwing up its own moral questions.

Verdict: Far more accessible than the season opener, this is a well-observed commentary on the darker side of fandom. At some point in time we’ve all thought we could do a better job than the writers, but be careful what you wish for… 8/10

Nick Joy