markfranh

Several years ago, there was a Spanish TV series called "Elite" about the events in a private school. Series one of that series featured a suspicious death which the police investigated so the series revolved around the events leading up to the death with many of the episodes showing how the relationships among the students developed over the course of the school year leading up to the death. Lots of love and sex but arguably all secondary to the main plot and much of it needed to explain the circumstances leading up to the death of one of the students. It was excellent and we would highly recommend it if you haven't seen it.

Series 2 also had a suspicious death and, once again, lots of relationship development but all needed to develop the plot and explain what happened.

Series 3, however, had no plot whatsoever and everything shown was pure love and sex with lots of triangles being formed with relationships formed and broken. But absolutely nothing in the way of a plot. It was nothing but a soap opera and of no interest at all unless you wanted to follow high school romantic intrigue. It was barely watchable and we wondered what the point of it all was.

If you view Berlin as a follow-on from Money Heist (even though it is a prequel), then this series is very much like Series 3 of Elite. It's not about the plot as the robbery is very very much secondary to showing the relationships being formed and broken. (At least there is some sort of plot, unlike Series 3 of Elite but the robbery is secondary to everything else and only occasionally interesting). Even the characters weren't particularly interested in the robbery most of the time as Berlin was most interested in pursuing Camile, Damian was lamenting the break-up of his marriage, and the other four were focussing on potential partners rather than the robbery. Who cared about the robbery? We didn't in the end.

So will Roi and Cameron eventually get together? What about Bruce and Keila? And most of all, what about Berlin and Camile? Will it be happily ever after or will it all end in tears? And Damian? Does he find happiness ... of a sort? And will he and Berlin eventually be reconciled after their messy falling out early in the series?

In this final episode all those questions are answered (except maybe Damian) as we see how each of those relationships play out. For those who cared to watch through to the end, pretty much everything is tidied up as you would expect.

And the robbery? Yes, that's tidied up as well but by this time weI really didn't care any longer.

My wife summed it up quite well as we neared the end end of this episode. "Money Heist was one of the best series we've ever seen but this was probably one of the worst".

So the good news is that the series is over. To be fair, this might have been one of the better episodes but I have to say I wondered if I just enjoyed it more knowing it was the last and things were finally coming to an end.

The bad news is that they've very obviously left it open for a season 2. Sorry, not interested.

Not sure why we persisted with this but really, really glad did we did (and please note the sarcasm in that statement).

Turns out this is a comedy and we just hadn't understood that until now. We hadn't realized that's what was intended until we got well into this second last episode of an agonizingly long series.

From just bad and ridiculous plot with silly writing, this has now descended into the realms of total farce. At several points in this episode, my wife and I were so amazed at what we were seeing that we found ourselves on the verge of laughing.

Only then did it strike us at pretty much the same time. This whole series was intended to be taken as a comedy. Wow. Who knew?

For example, Bruce ends up taking a couple of hostages at gunpoint and just to emphasize the humour of the surreal scene, he has one of them turn on the radio just so they can all join in a group sing along of the Bee Gees "Staying Alive".

Get it? Held at gunpoint? Fearing for their lives. Gee. Subtle. But oh so funny.

Meanwhile, since they have nothing better to do (like escape???), Berlin and Damian crash a wedding banquet at the hotel and break into a song duet thus emphasizing their reconciliation but not much else. Wouldn't have been quite so bad if either could sing well but ... er, no, they can't really sing. But at least it was funny. Well, it must have been as our eyes were watering with the tears it was so ridiculous.

Or maybe they were tears of pain; I'm not sure.

You get the idea.

In a desperate attempt to save the plot, the characters of Raquel and Alicia are introduced as police brought in from Spain to investigate since they would know Spanish criminals better than the French police obviously. Well, of course they would. And naturally, this being a prequel to Money Heist, Alicia and Raquel are best mates back in the old days and that is emphasized of course by the over-the-top friendliness of the two. Oh the irony ... knowing what we know from what eventually happens in Money Heist as we all do. Oh so subtle.

The good news is there's only 1 episode to go and then we can be put out of our misery. The bad news is that we still have to watch it. Groan.

I think the episode ran something like 42 minutes long. Of that, roughly 25 minutes or so was devoted to the side story between Roi and Cameron in which they go on an unauthorized nightime outing: nightclubbing, stealing a car, going to an illegal street race, taking an airplane for a joy ride. The usual thing. We've all been there.

The probem was that none of this had absolutely anything to do with the main story which was supposed to be about robbing the auction house. Well, there was roughly 2 seconds at the end of the side story when Cameron mentions she's lost something rather important but that doesn't justify the 25 minutes leading up to that relevation. It was totally unnecessary. Other than that relevation, the story would have lost absolutely nothing in terms of moving the plot along if they'd cut the entire 25 minutes and just skipped straight to the "oops" moment.

So what exactly was the point of this 25 minute interlude?

Was it character development? Well, we're over 1/2 way through the series, the robbery has been accomplished and the jewelery has been safely stowed away (mostly). It's a bit late now for character development I would have thought.

An explanation for Cameron's late participation in the robbery? Hmm, does anybody really care by now? I didn't. So what she had a bad relationship in the past with a musicial. So what, I say again. Been there, done that.

It was all quite pointless and left my wife reaching for a novel she had sitting beside her asking me to tell her when it was all over.

As I said, easily the weakest episode in this very weak series and possibly worthy of the usual phrase: "Well, that's 42 minutes of my life I'm never getting back".

Utter rubbish.

We've loved previous Alex Pina shows. Money Heist, of course, every season of it was a success. The less well known "The Pier" with the same lead actor as Money Heist in the key role. Also wonderful during its two season run. Sky Rojo was different but we did think the first season worth watching simply because it was so different.

So we'd been really looking forward to Berlin when we'd seen around a year ago it was going to be released at the end of 2023. A prequel to Money Heist with that show's most popular character coming back to life to be shown what he was doing prior to Money Heist. What could possibly go wrong?

Immediately into binge mode but that didn't last too long. First episode? Okay. But it just didn't feel right. Still, some series take an episode or two to get going.

Second episode, more holes than the first and we are thinking this isn't what we were expecting.

Third episode? Just lost the plot completely by now.

So what's the problem? Well, as so many have pointed out, it's just not credible that the mastermind of the breakend has decided to pursue a love interest almost full time while seemingly simultaneously keeping control over his team doing the drilling and breaking into the vault. It just doesn't ring true.

Worse than that, the time lines just aren't working either. By that I mean that some of what you see when they are focussing on the break-in is taking places over a period of many days while at the same time they are swapping back and forth to the romance and that is showing events taking place in just one day. And vice versa. It's just all over the place.

To make matters worse, there seem to be "flash forwards" over and over again where Berlin is talking to the team about what they will be doing while at the same time the video is showing the team actually doing it days or weeks in the future. Very confusing. Is it happening "now", today, or are we anticipating what will eventually be happening?

There are contradictions in some of the plot events as well though maybe I should be generous and put it down to bad translations but not sure how this got through editing.

So we're currently at episode 3 and will probably continue but aren't particularly optimistic this will improve. It's just a mess.

We expect better from Alex Pina after previous successes but this one is a bit of a fizzer.

What do you get if you cross the Williams brother with a Tarantino production? Boat Story.

Sadly, this isn't what I wanted. If I wanted to watch Tarantino, I'd watch a Tarantino film at a theater or on a pay tv channel late night, not a prime time tv series which is unsuitable for many viewers.

If you think the Tarantino comparison is inappropriate by the way, note that passing referrence to the name "Quentin" in the first episode by one of the characters. There is no way that is a coincidence. The Williams have made it very clear the style is quite deliberate and the comparison is to be made by viewers.

The massacre (what else could you call it?) in the first episode very reminiscent to the opening scenes of the 1995 film Desparado. At least that's the way it struck me. No, Desparado wasn't directed by Tarantino but he did appear in those opening scenes to essentially give his blessing to that film.

A famous quote from another Tarantion film came to mind. Samuel L. Jackson in Jackie Brown: "AK-47. When you absolutely, positively got to kill every mother###### in the room, accept no substitutes." No, the psycho killers in this story didn't use Ak-47s but they certainly killed every single you-know-what in the building. Not that they needed to: it just made for a Tarantino style production or so the Williams thought.

And it was all so pointless to have displayed it so explicitly. Just as effective would have been to have had the camera focussed on the driver outside, perhaps doing a Sudoku or reading a book, all to the sounds of 2 minutes of gunfire from inside the building before the 2 killers come out to explain what had happened. The over-the-top use of blood bags and having actors fly across the room after being blasted just wasn't needed.

When the second episode resumed with a similar amount of violence after just a few minutes, and again without any real need to show the violence as it could have been hinted at, my wife and I gave up.

A shame, as the plot and story otherwise excellent, Karyo brilliant, Hoggard and Joseph both doing wonders with their parties, and a masterful narration from our favourite Icelandic actor, what more could we want? Well, less violence when it wasn't really needed that explicitly.

Next time guys, more of "The Missing" and "The Tourist" and less of the Tarantino please.

This has the potential to be a wonderful series. The storyline is great. The main actors wonderful and the characters believable. The secondary characters as odd as you would expect. The narration by everyone's favourite Icelandic actor is spot on.

It's just unfortunate that the episode is spoiled entirely by one lengthy scene where the Williams brothers have decided that they want to be Tarrantino and show lots of blood and gore and needlessly so. Yes, the mass shooting is necessary for the plot development. I can see that. We've established that the killers are ruthless psychopaths in doing so and that the Tailleur will resort to desperate measures to recover his property.

However, this still could have been accomplished by just having the killers scene to enter the station and perhaps for the camera to be then focussed entirely on the driver for 3 or 4 minutes doing, say, a Sudoku, all the while listening to non-stop gunfire in the background and being unaffected by it. We still would have got the message. The killers then come out and report on what happened and what they found.

Instead, the Williams decide to shoot up everybody they see with lots of special affects, a year's budget on blood bags and actors flying across the screen after being blasted at point blank range. One brief moment of querky dialogue which simply added nothing.

Memo to Williams: it is possible to convey violence in a plot without needlessly showing it.

All in all, the whole 5+ minutes of gore was entirely gratuitous and spoiled the entire episode for us.

We will continue to watch episode 2 but if the violence continues at this sort of unnecessary level, we will likely quickly give up which would be a shame as the plot has so much potential.

If it hadn't been for this one scene, I would have given it a 9. But because of the scene spoiling the entire experience, I only rate it a 6.

My wife and I laughed at one of the credits which had the phrase "based on an original idea ....". Seriously? It's "The Love Boat" meets "The Mallorca Files" (or any other male/female unlikely partnership you care to name). Nothing at all original about it.

MY wife kept asking if what's-her-name (we didn't even care in the end) was supposed to be the 1st officer training to be a captain, then why didn't she spend any time on the bridge or involved in anything to do with sailing the ship? Ships often do have an officer assigned to security but it's a specialist position and not likely to be the first officer who spends all her time while in port on land (sorry, that just impossible to believe) and while on the ship spends the time with our male co-star.

Writing? Terrible and unconvincing. To be fair, it's hard to squeeze a credible plot into 44 minutes roungly and especially when you have to subtract out a bit at the beginning and end for opening and closing credits and for our hero to belt out a song to the audience for a couple of minutes as well.

We were pretty disappointed after the 1st episode but thought maybe it was bad because of the need to develop the characters and set the scene for the series. Sadly, episode 2 was even worse.

So that's it from us. It really was as bad as the reviews are saying so we won't be pursuing any more.

5 stars is probably generous.

And by that I mean that if the acting etc was any worse, then it might have come across as a spoof of the Agatha Christie genre and been funny and thus perhaps enjoyable. Sadly it wasn't bad enough to be a spoof. It was just bad.

Scrat h that. It was just awful.

None of the characters were believable. The plot wasn't the issue, it really came down to the acting and perhaps even the actors realizing that this was all nonsense. If they don't believe in their roles, how is the audience supposed to accept them?

The lead actress seemed to be the main issue for both my wife and myself. She seemed to be torn between playing the character seriously or playing it as a spoof. Maybe she didn't know what to do with the script or perhaps it came down to the director not knowing how to play it.

The actor playing Hjerson did what he could do with the script but when there was nothing there to work with, it felt like he really didn't know what to do either. "Wooden" doesn't cover it.

We watched the first 45 minutes, skimmed through the second 45 and then left it at that. Why anybody is rating this highly is beyound me. It's a load of (*&)*).

I'm going to start off by saying that I do not live in the UK and am unfamiliar with British law. However, I've lived in other countries in the Commonwealth and am familiar with laws elsewhere and I have a hard time believing British law could be substantially different. If it is, then perhaps British law should be adjusted.

One of the absolute key premises for the entire season 3 is that Ryan is able to visit is father in prison without Catherine's knowledge or permission.

Ryan is 16. He's a minor. Where I live currently and where I used to live, this is absurd. It simply isn't possible for this to happen. For a minor to visit anyone in a prison for whatever reason (even it is a relative) requires the parent/guardian to fill in a detailed application to the appropriate authorities with lots of documentation. There is then a bit of back and forth between the prison authorities and the parent/guardian before permission may be given or possibly where permission might be turned down because the visit is deemed inappropriate.

Catherine is Ryan's guardian. She is the grandmother so has custody due to the death of Catherine's daughter who was Ryan's mother. Ryan's father, Tommy Lee Royce, is in prison so obviously he's not in the picture to give permission.

There is just no way for someone like Neil to be able to get Ryan into the prison to visit his father. Period. Full stop. Can't happen. NO way. They'd be stopped at the gate, considerable questions might be asked, police might even be contacted to ask Neil what he thinks he is up to, and almost certainly Catherine would be contacted the very first time they tried the stunt.

There are very good reasons this law exists. Why? Pretty much to make sure that minors are not exposed to the kind of thing that is portrayed in this series! That's why the law is there. Simple as that.

As such, for us the whole premise to the series was ridiculous.

As I said, I'm not British and don't know British law. But if this is seriously possible in the UK then British people might want to ask questions of their MPs as to why this is possible when it is absolutely out of the question elsewhere in the world.

But for my wife and myself, this basic premise to the entire series pretty much ruined it for us. We have watched three episodes with gritted teeth and are struggling to find motivation to continue.

The Storyline at the top of the description for this series (as of when I'm writing this review in February 2023) is really grossly misleading. It currently says:

"Judge Claire Delval discovers that her father, Simon Delval, is involved in the corruption case she has been investigating for years. Forced to resign, his place in the Francophone Liberal Party is coveted by the discreet Mark Van Dyck."

It's not that it's wrong, it's that it really isn't what the story is about.

It's about an investigation into a brutal gang rape with that rape being shown mid way through the first episode in considerable detail.

The investigation judge, Claire Delval takes it upon herself to investigate the rape after being forced to step down from the corruption case because of her father's involvement.

Meanwhile, the ambitious politicial, Mark VAn Dyck, is after Simon Delval's job after he resigns because of the corruption case. However, the key backdrop to this is that Van Dyck witnessed the rape in the carpark, felt he couldn't intervene because it was a gang rape and it would have been him against 7 or so young men, so instead he filmed it and anonymously posts the film on the internet.

The series follows Duval's investigation into the rape in parallel with Van Dyck trying to pursue his political ambitions while not being exposed as the individual who saw the rape but did nothing.

Because of the violence in the first episode (i.e. The rape scene) and a brutal attack at the end of episode 2, we only watched the first two episodes before deciding it wasn't for us. If the "Storyline" at the top of the IMDB page had been accurate, we would have not even bothered starting it as it's not our kind of series.

We did chase down a description of the series elsewhere on the internet and confirmed it really is entirely about the rape and little to do with the corruption story and that's why we gave up.

It might appeal to others but before starting to view it, please be aware of what the story is actually about and ignore the current "Storyline" description which doesn't accurately portray the events in the series.

I'm generally highly critical in my reviews and often can not understand why people score obvious rubbish highly. For a change, it's nice to be able to aware a series a 10.

When so many series have more holes in the pot than a golf course, it's nice to come across a gem like this which is as near perfect as one could hope for and with an excellent cast featuring a rising star in Lauren Lyle.

Yes, the point is regularly made by experts in the real police that too many roles are cast where the investigating officer is far younger than would be the case in the real life. Lauren Lyle is only 29 and hence that criticism would be entirely valid (and which has been made here by other reviewers who have completely missed the point) except for one rather key fact: she was chosen to lead the cold case investigation because she was thought a dead certainty to fail. Of course, someone that young would never be assigned to this sort of case in real life but if you don't understand why she was appointed to this case in this tv series, then you really have missed the point of the story.

Anyway, this is as close to perfect as I've seen in a while and let's hope more of Val's Karen Pirie novels can be made into television series in future years.

There is no question the photography here is excellent and the dedication to the making of this documentary to be admired but for my wife and myself there were two aspects of this that just grated and really spoiled it.

Firstly, in the 1st and 4th episodes filmed in the Antarctic and showing the teamwork involved in "wave washing" penguins and seals that were seeking refuge on iceflows, Sir David repeatedly and consistently referred to the animals as "killer whales".

They are NOT killer whales. That is an unfortunate nickname that went out of use so many years ago that this is the first time I've heard anybody refer to them as such in at least a decade if not longer. They are Orca.

Killer whales would be fine as an alternative if for one fact: they are NOT members of the whale family fore crying out loud and it is just wrong to refer to them that way.

Orcas are members of the oceanic dolphin family. Yes, the name is arrived from the latin for "whale" but that was an error in naming them dating back to the 19th century. It's unfortunate, but it was forgivable back then for thinking they are whales. We know better now and should correct the mistake by not referring to them as whales as an English name for them.

I read recently that the nickname originally given to them was not even "killer whales"; it was "whale killers" because Orca has been observed to kill whales. Somehow the name got reversed and it stuck.

"Orca" is the correct and widely accepted name so use it.

Unfathomable that Sir David has agreed to use the term "killer whale" in his narration because he was must surely know it is wrong. In fact, by coincidence I happened to see another Attenborough documentary this week in which he actually did refer to them several times as "Orca". So why "killer whale" here which only serves to perpetuate the error that these are whales?

Second mistake came in the fourth episode and was more of a misleading statement. In the section on the Antarctic interior he was talking about the active volcanos in the interior mountain ranges. He then showed video of Mt. Erebus and the Erebus lava lake in the crater and used it as an example. Erebus is NOT on the mainland of Antarctica but on an offshore Island near the mainland but in the Ross Sea. Again, the information was just wrong. Why suggest that Erebus is an interior volcano when it isn't?

Problem is that when one catches out narration having two errors like the above, you start to wonder what else they have got wrong. What other factual errors were there that we didn't catch?

I'd love to have given this series a 10 for the visuals alone but two points docked for the two script errors that I caught.

I'd been looking forward to this since it was announced but it turned out to be such a disappointment. It was almost another very good Spanish series (there are so many of them) but, sadly, it misses the mark badly.

I don't know what it is, but although Jean Reno is one of our favourite French actors, he just doesn't work here in the role of the butler. Neither my wife nor myself could put our finger on it but he just wasn't convincing. We don't know why, but he doesn't work.

As to the lead character. Well, it's not the actress's fault. She can only do what the director and the writer tells her to do. But the character is just incredibly annoying to the point we just had to give up watching after only two episodes.

I didn't want a remake of Australian's Miss Fisher or the Chinese remake Miss S. I wasn't expecting it so that wasn't the issue (unlike other reviewers who wanted a similar character from the sounds of it). I just wanted a character who was somehow believable and not a slapstick comedy cartoon cut-out which is the way she comes across here.

The basic premise of the story is that she can't be a policeman because she is a woman and certainly that is a credible storyline. The problem here is that the way THIS particular woman is behaving, I can't really blame the Glacian police for having nothing whatsover to do with her. That's the problem with the whole story. She might be clever enough to figure out clues, but she then is seen chasing the bad guy who is twice her size barefoot across a rooftop after losing her gun and then helping him not to fall to his death so he can then attempt to kill her? Is anybody really that stupid? That was the final straw. It was just stupid and decided enough was enough and we wouldn't be watching any furhter.

As to the keystone comedy type chase scenes and some of the other supposedy amusing touches. Unnecessary and they don't work in what should have and could have been a serious piece of drama and been directed and written that way.

The plot scenario is fine. It all would have worked if it weren't for the other issues.

I enjoyed the first series and probably would have scored it a 7 or an 8.

But series 2? What happened?

The first episode of series 2 you could dismiss as a nothing episode on the grounds that the writers needed to establish any changes that had happened since the first season - e.g. A death and becoming CEO. Fair enough. We can let that effort go as a necessary evil.

Episode 2 with the "dribbling" scene? The dares in Series 1 were arguably worthy of dares that you could vaguely see adults participating in. But dribbling an entire mouthful of coffee? All I could think of is this is the sort of thing that pre-school children might do and that is perhaps an injustice to young children as I suspect many wouldn't even participate in such infantile behaviour. It was embarrassing to watch and just not worthy of writing when you see this kind of crap on television.

We almost gave up at this point but thought that everybody is allowed a bad error of judgement (in the writing) so we'll let it go.

But episode 3? Cat sex? Watching this play out my wife summed it up really well: "How stupid to they think we are?'. That's the way it felt. The writers thought viewers were so stupid that they'd watch any garbage they put to screen.

Well, sorry, not us.

We give up and will watch no more.

Why this is episode is scoring so well just escapes both my wife and myself. It says as much about the attitudes of some viewers as anything perhaps.

There is no doubt series 1 was just wonderful. Everything worked.

But series 2? What a mess and just so difficult to follow what was going on.

Storylines came and went. Characters briefly introduced and then dropped. No explanations given. No reason why this happened. Consistency just disappeared as well.

It took me ages to figure out what was going on and then I noticed that at least 3 if not 4 directors were used for the season - I'm still not sure who directed episode 8.

It was as if the directors had different visitons as to what the story should be and how it should be told and also as to which stories should be followed and which dropped.

We have the tenant farmers with the pigs again where the husband met an untimely fate in series 1. They're back again in series 1, a new character is introduced to the farm. He's a troublemaker for the 3 episodes. He disappears in episode 3. Hints that questions will be asked.

But then the entire story is dropped from episode 4 on. Why? As I'm suggesting, is this because the new director in episode 4 didn't like the story and just decided not to pursue it and just drop it?

In the middle episodes, we have the storyline re canals vs. Trains and which will be the future with intense negotiations by Anne with shareholder meetings and making decisions as to where she should place her money. Episode 6? Gone, not to appear again except for a brief mention of selling shares in episode 7.

We have the general election theme in two episodes and all the politics and violence. Next episode? Gone with barely a mention.

The coal mine? It comes and goes. Lots of discussion about developing it, who is in charge, what should be done but then it disappears for a couple of episodes only to reappear again with the new director in the later episodes.

In episode 5, there is a great deal made of the cook's health and eventually Anne suggests she go off for a visit to a relative to rest and recover. We expected the next episode would follow her visit and discuss developments. Nope. In episode 6, she is just not present only to briefly reappear back at Shipton in episode 7 with a short "are you feeling better?" from Anne.

We could barely keep track of characters as they came and went so often it was dizzying.

Did we enjoy this series? Not really. Will we watch a series 3? Not if they persist with multiple directors who clearly have their own visions and aren't talking to each other.

I cringed every time Hannah Fry was on screen. Her presentation might have been appropriate for a 12 year old (or younger) but I felt totally patronized sitting through this and my wife echoed those sentiments. Really disappointing that they chose to pitch it at this level.

Was some of the science interesting? Bits. But for the most part nothing new.

It was a contrived theme "a day in the life of Earth" as all it was was just a summary of the various processes that sculpt the planet on an ongoing basis. Nothing "day in the life" about it.

Skip it and find something aimed at an adult audience and let teachers perhaps use it as a tool for primary school level students on a rainy day.

How bad is it? Well, at one point Washington is racing to the scene of another bomb with lights flashing and sirens blaring as they race to arrive in time. She had her partner carry on a conversation as they drive and you can see through the window that every other car on the road is passing them at a much higher speed. Sloppy directing, sloppy editing, sloppy everything.

Want more?

The car bomb in episode 4. A bomb is supposedly rigged to go off when the car's driver opens the door when he reaches his destination. That in itself didn't make a lot of sense at the time we watched the scene as it raised two questions immediately.

1) Why didn't the bomb go off when he got into the car?

2) But even working around that bit, how were the bombers to know that he might not stop off on his way to pick up a pack of cigarettes somewhere, buy a coffee, fill up with petrol, all of which would have involved getting out of the car and "boom", long before he reached the destination where the bomb was supposed to be detonated.

So to get around #1 (and ignoring point 2 entirely) we have the following early in episode 5 and I quote word for word here:

"A pressure plate was rigged under his seat, set to arm the door when he got up"

"Arm" in the context of any bomb means to activate the device ; to make the trigger functional. So what they are saying is that after the driver gets up, the door is then "armed" so that the NEXT time he opens the door, the door sends a message to the bomb and the bomb will go off.

I don't know about you, but when I'm behind the steering wheel of a car, I tend not to stand up inside the car and then open the door. Try it some time. Take your weight entirely off the car seat to stand up and only THEN open the car door.

The way it happens in real life, the driver opens the unarmed door fully FIRST, swings his legs around to get out, then gets up, eases his weight off the pressure plate, only THEN arms the door (if there is a bomb!), but with the door already open nothing happens!

It was just stupid to say such thing. Have it so that getting up causes the bomb directly to go off, maybe, but "arm the door"? It was ridiculous.

Yes, the pressure plate could have been used to set off the bomb DIRECTLY, but why not just say that? Even so, then we're back to point 2 where he might have stopped off somewhere along the way.

The decoy timer in the glove box? Why? I mean, WHY? Why bother? The only possible result of placing the bomb in the glove box next to a visible timer is that the driver opens the glove box at some point during the drive (to check a map, reach for a tissue, get a pen ...) sees the bomb, sees the timer ticking down, understandably panics, stops the car, gets out, and "boom" the bomb goes off prematurely before he reaches the target at the destination. If you don't want that to happen, hide the bomb and skip the decoy timer altogether.

Why wouldn't the bombers plant the bomb out of sight where we don't have to worry about the driver seeing the bomb before reaching the destination and risk him panicking and thus setting off the device prematurely? If he never sees the bomb, he would be less likely to get out of the car before getting to where the car is needed.

Again, it was stupid.

The ONLY possible way to make sure that bomb goes off in the right place at the right time is for the bomb to be activated by remote using a cell phone and hide the bomb, say, under a seat in the car out of sight. When a watcher sees the car arrive (from a safe vantage down the street), he makes the call and then "boom". Too hard? Well, not really, as they used cell phone activation how many other times in this series? They know how to make bombs that are activated remotely! They would have done it with this device as well.

Stupid doesn't cover it. The only reason it was written the way it was written is so that Expo could get involved.

Need more?

Policeman, standing on the street where a bomb has been found: "We've evacuated everyone in a 2 mile radius".

Me: "No, you bloody well haven't because over your shoulder I can see a crowd of people standing maybe 100m from where the bomb is located not to mention all the people just walking to your left."

Idiots writing an idiotic dialogue.

The final utterly ridiculous revelation comes in the last few minutes of the show. The identify of the bomber is confirmed. He takes hostages. He states his grievance in front of the cameras on live tv.

And for those who are actually thinking about what has gone on, it's immediately obvious that what took place in the first 5 and a half episodes of this dreadful series was just totally unnecessary from the bomber's point of view. I mean, why bother with all that nonsense? All you wanted to do was get yourself on tv, standing next to the individual who you had a genuine complaint against, threaten them, and you would have got your message across just as well. What you are supposed to have done for the first five and a half episodes was just totally unnecessary given your stated goal in those last 15 minutes of episode 6.

Dreadful doesn't cover it.

I'm only covering just a few of the inane things that went on in this series that anybody with even a little bit of brain power should have been able to see this as the rubbish it was. It says a lot about the viewers praising this nonsense that they have viewed it so positively. Try thinking about what you are seeing for a change.

When the directors and writers can't even be bothered getting things like this stuff right, well ... "dreadful" really pretty much covers it. Four letter words would get the message across too but I don't want to offend.

Jed Mercurio series? Never again.

Why?

Several reasons.

Firstly, it was incredibly boring. Martin Freeman prattling on about nothing. When we realized we had stopped listening after the first 10 minutes and had continued for a further 5 without hearing a single word being spoken, my wife and I just gave up.

Secondly, it didn't work. It comes across as an attempt at being a docudrama about life as a cop patrolling alone in Liverpool. But here's the problem. What it actually comes across as is "famous actor Martin Freeman, putting on a fake Liverpool accent that comes and goes, pretending to be a cop patrolling alone in Liverpool." We just couldn't get past this being "famous actor Martin Freeman pretending". It didn't work.

If you want to do a convincing docudrama, then you need an unknown actor of some sort (preferably with a genuine Liverpudlian accent) in the role. A major actor just doesn't work. We need to see the character as an actual cop, not as an actor playing the cop. There is a difference from your regular dramas where you just take it as given that you have actors in the roles. Docudramas like this are different.

For those who want to see a really good docudrama about life on the street, have a look at the Swedish series "Thin Blue Lines". Excellent, convincing, and highly recommended.

Don't get me wrong. This is excellent and hence the score.

But it is tagged as a "black comedy" here and being promoted as such on TVNZ here in NZ and from what I've seen similarly in the UK and possibly elsewhere.

It is no such thing. It's a thriller, certainly. A bit of a mystery, definitely, as you're never sure what's going on. Black, very dark, definitely!

But comedy???

Where is that coming from?

In the first 10 minutes with the accident, sure, there is a suggestion that it MIGHT, maybe, possibly become a comedy. It immediately brought to mind something like Hitchcock's mid 50s movie, The Trouble with Harry. Now THAT was a black comedy. Possibly even Weekend at Bernie's; a comedy, but not so much of the black.

There's an inconvenient body. What should we do with it? Cart him around awkwardly, and put him back in the house watching tv etc. All fraught with the possibility of comedy.

But, no, it isn't. It's just the two protagonists improvising a solution to the mess they are in and trying to get away with vehicular manslaughter (or whatever the Scottish term might be).

Unfortunately, because it had been promoted as a comedy, my wife and I spent the next half hour or so wondering when the humour would be raised. It never was and we were left wondering what on earth was going on. A comedy that had no humour at all? This was odd.

Well done. Intriguing. Lots of potential.

But just odd that we found ourselves watching a comedy that was distinctly unfunny.

We asked ourselves after episode 1 if we should persist with this unfunny "comedy". We did and are so glad we did.

The intrigue just got better and better.

There are (roughly) 9 main characters here and I think all but one of them had hidden stories/secrets which only come to light slowly over the next 3 episodes. By episode 3, you know things are not as they seem with the storyline and there are lies and secrets hinted at and revealed everywhere. You are left wondering how they will be all successfully resolved in the final episode.

Amazingly, all those threads are tied up nicely in episode 4 with every mystery resolved and no loose ends I could see where you are left thinking, "Hang on, what about ...". Nope, we were totally thrilled with the result and just really satisfied with the effort. Thank you to the writers and director for a job well done (for a change as so much out of the UK is just rubbish recently).

But comedy? Absolutely not.

Is there such a think as "Scottish Noir". Well, if not before, then there is now because this is it.

The Scandinavians would have been proud to produce an effort like this and so should the Scots.

One final thought. With the plot having so successfully tied up completely with the final scene, I was shocked to see there is a series 2. Why? What's left to do? Why try to continue when there is no need?

I have seen the odd review that has talked about the second Series and which was less than impressed so we won't be bothering. Take my advice: watch series 1 of this wonderful series and perhaps just leave it there feeling very happy with what you've seen.

There is a scene in Episode 4 I think it was where one character is stabbed in the eyeball with a pen. Gruesome, I know, but some viewers may find that preferable to having to watch this series.

I won't say this is the worst tv series I've ever seen but I will say that it is the one that fell the furthest short of expectations based on all the hype leading up to it.

The biggest problem with the series is that it doesn't seem to be able to make up it's mind what it is.

Is it trying to emulate a Coen brothers film as others have suggested in these reviews? Well, if that was the intention, it has failed miserably. The Coen brothers achieve consistency throughout all of their movies and this series is just all over the place.

There are aspects of Tarantino here with at least a couple of scenes with extreme bloody violence. But again, one scene is extremely violent and moments later we cut to outright comedy.

So is it a comedy? That didn't even occur to us as a possibility until perhaps late in the second episode or maybe into the third when a few of the scenes started to come across as vaguely amusing. A black comedy? Was that the intention?

Well, not too many comedies have people being stabbed in the eye with a pen or almost decapitating themselves on a broken window so that seems unlikely.

Is it a spoof in the same way "Airplane" was a spoof of the movie Airport and the Scream movies are all spoofs. The thing with a spoof though, is that you know you are watching a spoof. There is no doubt. With this series you just don't know.

Characters are clearly stolen from other movies or shows. Tell me the character played by the world's best known Icelandic actor isn't modelled on Javier Bardem's character in No Country for Old Men? Back to the Coen brothers again.

Ideas are stolen from other movies too. There is a scene in episode 4 where two characters are going through a collection of fake passports and the different names that appear in each of them. Each name taken from the names of a famous pop group. Now I know I've seen that somewhere before but for the life of me I can't remember where it was. Might even have been a move from 50 years ago but it's been done before, possibly more than once.

And Dmitri? Seriously? Does a Brad Pitt character immediately come to mind? Except in that old movie you didn't see the twist until the closing scenes. Here it took maybe three scenes with Dmitri to know what was happening it was so unconvincing.

A character dies after being buried underground and then has the misfortune to have his life giving air hose to the surface clogged with sand in a massive sandstorm. Sorry, seen it before. It's been done. Another idea stolen from another movie.

At one point a character barely survives a vicious fight and being stabbed in the back. He stumbles outside to escape, sits down on the edge of a well, and, well, you can guess the rest. Tips over backwards into the well only to later climb out relatively unscathed from all he has just been through. Keystone Cops? Laurel and Hardy? Charlie Chaplin?

How about movies where a sane character but with a serious problem suddenly finds themselves in the midst of a strange land where all the locals are a bit odd if not outright stupid? Sound familiar? Well Elliot here certainly has a problem and wakes up in a strange land where all the Australians are simpletons if not stupid. They aren't munchkins but a surprising number of them are fat. Again, it's all been done before and far better in many other movies.

Another comedic aspect that just fails miserably is the issue of money. Right at the start Elliot discharges himself from hospital with no id and no money or anything so Helen gives him some cash to get him started. And boy, does this money go a long way. It pays for a bus trip. It pays for a room for the night. It pays for meals. It pays for drinks. It pays for a helicopter ride which was an hour each way. It pays for two rooms for a later night. Sure, you could argue that Luci manages to cough up the approximately $2,000 for the two hour round trip helicopter flight from a bit of spare cash she has in her purse. Or maybe the locals just decide to do it for free out of the goodness of their hearts, simpletons that they are.

And our detective from the big city? Seen it all before. Totally unconvincing. He even had to have the personality quirk of the regular 10:00 a.m. Phone call just to emphasize he's a bit odd. Boring.

I could go on but I'm only through episode 4 and only continuing to watch to see if the ending turns out to be that Elliot has actually been dead the entire series and hasn't known it. Maybe we get to see his back in his final scene and there is a large hole in it from a shotgun blast after the car crash in the opening scene. Old Bruce Willis' film anybody?

Just one final thought. One of the key bad guys here is constantly on LSD. Much the same has to be suggested of some the reviews I've seen posted here: being on LSD might be the only possible way to get through the series without seeing all the massive problems with the writing and the directing. Absolutely unbelievable people are giving this s*** 9s and 10s. What are they on?

And given that episode 5 pretty much is entirely a "bad acid" trip (and, yes, that's been used before to recall lost memories), then why not join in?

Just a totally depressing experience I could have done without.

There is an overused phrased when reading reviews. We see it all the time and generally people are just exaggerating. They are trying to find a way to express how bad something is without really meaning it was as bad as all that. What's the phrase?

"That's an hour and a half of my life I'll never get back."

We've all seen it. Not taken it seriously. Knew it was a bit of hyperbole.

In this case, however, the first thing that came to my mind when the credits starting rolling was this:

"That's an hour and a half of my life totally wasted."

It really was that bad.

What has happened to this show?

Season 1 was very good. Lovely the characters. Plots were good. And on and on.

Season 2? Not so much.

Season 3??? Okay, I'll make allowances for a pandemic maybe causing disruptions and as a result things turned out badly.

But this? This is inexcusable.

At one point I thought this was the kind of things you might write for a 13 year old. Was that the audience they were aiming at?

Unlikely, given all the bad sexual jokes they kept slipping in. You'd hardly be doing that if your intended audience was young teenagers.

It obviously wasn't aimed at adults. Most adults are intelligent enough to realize that when it is looks like rubbish and sounds like rubbish then it probably is rubbish.

Then I realized it was probably aimed at adults who still had the minds of 13 year olds. What else could it be?

By about 1/2 way through, my wife had picked up her book and was reading trying her best to ignore what was on the screen.

Me? I was on the phone looking for updates on the recent Omicron cases. It was less depressing than watching this programme.

Never again.

As another review has already mentioned this is NOT Prof. Cox's best work. I'd go further. It's his worst.

The review in the Guardian talked about the dumbing down that is right through the programme. But it's worse than that. I know a bit about this subject and in the first half hour alone I spotted three statements made by the professor which at best could be categorized as "misleading" but at worst one might even say they were just wrong.

Firstly, he begins one segment with the statement that "in the beginning" there were filaments of dark matter across the universe. Okay, we'll allow the reference to Genesis with the "in the beginning" but the fact remains that "in the beginning" there was NOT a web of filaments across the universe. "In the beginning" there was the Big Bang, followed by a massive inflationary period, followed by fundamental particles forming, followed by ... and then there was, at some point well after "the beginning", the formation of a network of filaments of dark matter across the universe. So, no, "in the beginning" is just wrong.

Secondly, at one point he describes the life cycle of stars from Hydrogen and Helium right up to the heaviest element that is created in stellar nuclear fusion, iron. Correct. But then he goes on to say that in the life cycle of stars, the star then collapses and an implosion occurs with the resultant distribution of all these elements out into space to seed the creation of more stars. This time, a very misleading statement. Sure, many stars end their life in this way but they need to be of sufficient mass to do so. Our sun, for example, will not end in a supernova explosion as it just isn't large enough. Yes, in the early universe most stars were large enough for this to occur but to state this or at least implying that all stars end their lives in this way is wrong.

Thirdly, he specifically states that the elements that are created which are heavier than iron come from the collision of two stars. Where did that come from? It is well understood, well documented, and widely studied that the heavier elements from above iron in the table right up to Uranium are created during a supernova process when the collapse of a dying star towards the core fuses the remaining elements in the star's core into those heavier elements before the final explosion distributes them out into space where they eventually coalesce into other stellar systems and their planets (like Earth!). Collisions of stars? He knows better than that. I've never seen a reference to any astronomer observing the catastrophic collision of stars though a large star or black hole pulling matter away from a smaller companion star is common enough (and that doesn't create heavy elements). Probably heavier elements would be created IF or when stars collide (rare now but maybe more common early on?) but the main method of creation for heavier elements during the life of the universe has been supernova explosions at the end of a massive star's life.

But the errors weren't the worst of it.

The show was just incredibly slow and tedious.

The prof would make a statement with a sense of profoundness and then give us five or more seconds to absorb what he said and understand just how important it was. Then he would spend another few seconds enunciating another sentence equally profound (in his mind) and then give us another five or more seconds to understand how important the information was. On and on and on and on it went. Ad nauseum and I do mean nauseum.

I just wanted him to get on with it.

I would guess if you could edit out all the long gaps of silence (or music) in between the profound statements, the show could be reduced from 1 hour to maybe 45 minutes. It was that bad. Speed up the delivery as well instead of dragging out each sentence and you're down to 35-40 minutes tops.

The music? Just dreadful.

The CGI? Over the top and sometimes they lingered on images way WAY too long. Once we've seen the image of what a hot burning blue supergiant star looks like theoretically, did they really need to keep going back to the same image over and over and over again? I think not. I guess that paid for the special effects, so they wanted to get their money's worth.

We gave up after about 35 minutes when my wife said she was falling asleep.

We expect better Prof. Cox.

There were so many holes in the procedures described on the submarine that the Guardian even ran a lengthy piece interviewing navy personal on everything that was nonsense. No need for me to go over them again.

The one huge hole on the land aspect of the plot was the bit about the Russian agent claiming diplomatic immunity. The law and the Vienna convention are very clear on who is entitled to diplomatic immunity. To be entitled you must be fairly senior personnel in an embassy (or high commission) or consulate or a family member and must have been accredited by the hosting government. For example, the Russian ambassador to the UK in London plus all the senior people in the embassy and all their family members would have diplomatic immunity. Junior personnel who are accredited and attached to the embassy would have limited immunity is my understand of the law.

But ... if you are undercover operative pretending to be a loyal Scot but in fact working for a foreign government, you do NOT have diplomatic immunity and there is nothing an embassy can do about that AFTER you are caught as was the case here.

It was ridiculous.

Having said all that, it was still a really enjoyable six episodes of viewing so who cares about all those plot holes. Great cast, well acted, well directed, and all the rest of it.

As to some who have criticized the final say 20 minutes of the last episode, would you have preferred all those lose ends not be tied up? It seemed essentially to do so otherwise we would all have been left wondering about various odds and ends. No problem here and I would say the last episode was one of the strongest.

My subject line really covers it.

The photography is absolutely exceptional and the editing of the material they had to put together sequences just wonderful. Easily the best I've ever seen.

It's just a shame that our tv doesn't come with an option to shut the narrator up and just listen to the animals and perhaps the background music. The fake stories and fake animal names just totally spoiled it for us. We tried watching with the sound on, and cringed at the words. We tried with the sound off and felt we were missing not hearing the animal noises.

So a 10 for the visuals on this series and a 4 for the stupid decision to run with made up stories that were totally unnecessary and almost ruined it for us.

For the first 3/4 of this episode, this was by far the best episode in the series.

Kit Harrington's opening (as "Alex") to camera all done without the need to cutaway and it must have lasted 5+ minutes was just incredible. Mesmerising and I just don't know how he managed it. Not one line missed. Not a single need to pull the camera away and cut because he'd fluffed something. Not one obvious cue point from someone out of shot because he'd forgotten something. As near to a perfect performance as you can get.

Most of the rest of the episode just as outstanding.

But then it all falls apart in the last 5 or so minutes and left both my wife and myself feeling rather angry.

The following might be considered a bit of a spoiler so if you don't want to read what we intensely disliked, just stop reading now.

Okay so the senior detective (the woman) leaves the room and I'm sorry but I don't recall her name. She's presented with overwhelming evidence that the woman laying the rape charge had made the whole thing up to get money from Alex and probably from Alex's business.

The detective re-enters the interview room and announces we've decided to let you go.

Now Lee Ingleby's character (the #2 detective) doesn't know what happened next door and knows nothing about the new evidence. Given his ignorance, you'd expect a certain amount of surprise if not total shock at the senior's decision without consulting him. Is he shocked? Surprised? Nope. Doesn't flinch, doesn't bat an eyebrow, doesn't even react one bit. Totally unbelievable. Just made 0 sense.

But it gets worse.

Alex (once the accused now the victim) is understandably distraught his life has been destroyed by the false accusation and asks to speak for a few minutes with Lee Ingleby for some reassurance about a police apology at the very least, which he isn't going to get, so his life remains destroyed.

So what happens? The senior detective just walks away, leaving Lee Ingleby still totally in the dark about the new evidence that exonerates Alex and lets Lee just deal with Kit Harrington's character without actually knowing what happened in the other room. Unbelievable!

Worse still, the police certainly could have done something to restore the accused's reputation! There was nothing to stop them saying something like, "up might be interested in knowing that it's a matter of public record that the complainant's girlfriend pulled exactly the same thing last year with her company right down to the coincidence of laying a complaint the day after she was rejected for a promotion and that she was texting with her back and force during the evening. Coincidence? We don't think so". That would have been absolutely fine and in some countries a requirement because ALL evidence found by the police MUST be turned over to a defendant and Alex had been arrested, don't forget.

Could they have legally released the exchange of text messages which makes the plan conclusive? Dodgy but possibly. I'm not 100% of British law but not inconceivable it could have been raised during the interview session if it had continued.

However, even if it couldn't have been released, could not the senior detective have had a quiet word in the lawyer's ear and whispered something like, "I'm going to drop a piece of paper on the way out the door. Don't feel you need to return it to me. Nudge nudge wink wink".

Would that have given the lawyer everything she needs to sue the false complainant for slander? Absolutely. Would it have exonerated the falsely accused? Absolutely.

The police could have gone further. They could have told Kit and lawyer they intended on laying charges of "wasting police time" and/or "filing a false police report" against the complainant. They had the evidence. Would it have been enough for a conviction? Not necessarily, but it certainly would have enough to get Kit cleared in the court of public opinion and ultimately that's what he wanted.

Rarely have my wife and I been so angry after viewing a programme and felt so let down.

An 8 is generous and based on Kit Harrington's performance and the first 3/4 of the episode.

For the last 5 minutes. A whopping 0. Nil points. Nothing. Nada.

It was rubbish.