In a three part season opener, we learn about the emotional backstory motivating Xavier Collins in his quest outside the bunker (think Silo, but with air conditioning and clean clothes); more backstory exposes Sinatra’s secondary secret project; and we explore the backstory of Annie, a Graceland tour guide who has survived the apocalypse in Elvis’s mansion.

Did I mention that there’s a lot of backstory to plough through in the three season openers for the second season of Paradise – each focusing on a different character? They’re all fine in their own way, but following the tight-as-a-gnat’s-mankini storytelling of the first season I can’t pretend that I didn’t find my attention wandering at times and craving the forward moving story to kick into gear – which it doesn’t really do until the second half of episode 3.

While it’s nice to learn how Xavier (Sterling K. Brown) fell in love with his wife, Terri, I already knew how devoted he was, and I spent episode 2 far more engaged with Collins’s delicate relationship with the gang of feral kids offering him refuge in a motor cruiser beached miles from the sea by the global tsunami three years before. Similarly, I would have preferred to discover Sinatra’s (Julianne Nicholson) secret project through the eyes of a central character than through what is in effect an extended, albeit dramatised info-dump concerning all sorts of characters in whom I’m just not invested.

I did, however, particularly enjoy the introduction of a completely new character – Annie (Shailene Woodley) in episode 1, Graceland. It’s a stroke of genius to locate her story in the eponymous mansion, and it elegantly serves to bring the audience up to speed on what has been going on outside during the action of season 1. I’m looking forward to seeing how she impacts the story as it gets going for real. Having said that, at a full hour, the opener felt a little over-stretched at times.

Verdict: Season 2 of Paradise has got off to a decent start, and I’m hopeful that the pace will pick up and the storytelling will find a renewed sense of urgency before too long. 7/10

Martin Jameson

www.ninjamarmoset.com