Ursula searches for the meaning of life as she dies and is reborn time and time (and time) again.

It’s quite hard to be critical of the penultimate part of Life After Life. Episode 3 is by far the strongest chapter, containing, as it does, highly disturbing scenes of domestic abuse, which are well written, well-acted, and directed with care and integrity.

But then Ursula dies (not a spoiler, given the premise) and is reborn, and therein lies the problem with the series.

The idea of a life relived until the protagonist can ‘get it right’ or find the answer to some existential question is not an original one. In Groundhog Day, the benchmark classic of this genre, it works to great comic effect and manages to be profound and memorable along the way. In sci-fi romps such as Edge of Tomorrow or Source Code, there is a conundrum to solve, not unlike trying to complete a level in a video game, and that offers the viewer the narrative satisfaction they are looking for. The problem with Life After Life is that it mistakenly believes that the premise will offer something profound in its own right, without any comedy at all, nor with a sci-fi McGuffin, however ridiculous, to underpin it. Perhaps counterintuitively, Life After Life ends up saying absolutely nothing at all.

The more grisly the deaths inflicted upon poor old Ursula, the less consequential they become, precisely because we know she’s going to pop up again straight away and have another go.

If Life After Life teaches us anything, it’s that what makes life dramatic, what makes life meaningful, is precisely the fact that we all only get one chance.

To be fair, in the somewhat muddled final scenes, this seems to be the conclusion Kate Atkinson/Bathsheba Doran come to as well, but as I knew that before I started watching I didn’t need a four-hour drama to tell me all over again (and again, and again). As I intimated in my review for the series openers, perhaps all of this works better on the page.

Life After Life is a very watchable drama, the production style settles down in the later episodes with fewer mystifying bloopers, and it’s hard to actively dislike, but it’s nowhere near as philosophically profound as it thinks it is, and without comedy, or the world to save, it’s an oddly unfulfilling and hollow experience. 6/10

Martin Jameson