The Night Manager episode 2: James Bond meets Hot Fuzz as Tom Hiddleston's audition for 007 continues

BBC One's gorgeous-looking drama series The Night Manager might be based on the book of the same name by John le Carré, but that didn't stop viewers from drawing comparisons to the work of another famous spy writer - Ian Fleming.

'It's Tom Hiddleston's audition for Bond!' they cried - and it's increasingly difficult to disagree as the Fleming-esque tropes continued to pile up in episode two.

Pine, Jonathan Pine, is an ex-military man who's acquired sufficient charm and good manners. The point man in an off-the-books operation for British intelligence, he's motivated by his duty to his country - and by the murder of a glamorous sacrificial lamb.

Haunted by an ambiguously murky relationship with his late parents, Pine is "half a psychopath" - with danger lurking behind piercing eyes. He's a powerful beast contained within a well-tailored suit.

He's a womaniser - though often to further his own ends - and after getting close to the villain of the piece, Pine is taken to his grand headquarters, situated someplace remote, where he's threatened with torture.

The only part of The Night Manager episode two that didn't scream Bond was Pine's brief sojourn to the South West - of all the glamorous locations that 007 has visited, Devon has never been among them.

Maybe in the next movie? With four more episodes of this series to go, Hiddles is sure to have any doubters convinced that he'd make a superb Bond by the time he's done.

The campaign starts here - and if director Susanne Bier can be convinced to step behind the camera for Bond 25, then all the better.

AND ANOTHER THING…

- The first 11 or so minutes of this episode - the attempted kidnap of Roper's son, right up until the reintroduction of Pine - were utterly scintillating. Just brilliant, superbly orchestrated drama.

- "There must be something seductive about [the devil], otherwise he'd be a pretty useless devil," - that's a direct quote from Hugh Laurie, who succeeds admirably in making the "world's worst man" both charming and menacing.

- Who wouldn't watch a prequel just exploring the origins of Roper's relationship with Corky? Laurie and Hiddleston will win all the plaudits (and deservedly so) but Tom Hollander is again quietly superb - arch, funny and yet completely terrifying.

- "Corky", "Frisky", "Tabby" - all of Roper's henchman have such jolly, thoroughly British nicknames.

- It seems there's more to seemingly vacuous sex kitten Jed (Elizabeth Debicki) than meets the eye - she has a past, a son, and a horrid grotesque mother.

- Olivia Colman's Burr works much better here than in the opener. Freed from the tired setup of being stuck in a cold, windowless office, where she rallies against her superiors, Colman shares an easy chemistry with both Hiddleston and David Harewood as US operative Joel Steadman.

- So with no official record of Pine's operation, there's no actual proof he was ever working for British intelligence? That's definitely not going to backfire. At all.