Anna Friel is terrific as Marcella in this tv series which began in 2016. And what a concept. She plays a police detective with DID (dissociative identity disorder) whose personal life is somewhat of a mess and has been since the loss of her baby daughter some years earlier. She is now divorced with two children.
I'll just say that there are some great scenes and some interesting storylines throughout Marcella, but there are a couple of big problems. First of all, if one isn't familiar with a group of actors (and I only knew Jamie Bamber) - well, the actors sort of look alike.
Too many beards, too many redheads, too many blondes - I was confused in the way people have been when I'm watching a soap opera and they ask, was that the same woman who was with the tall guy? Casting directors make this mistake all the time as they prefer certain types and keep casting them in the same show. Sloppy. You can do that with a group of stars that people recognize, not with actors no one knows.
The biggest problem is the show's failure to resolve a lot of the subplots. I kept asking a friend who'd seen it what happened with so and so, and all I got was "keep watching." Well, I kept watching and guess what - I still don't know what happened with so and so, and in fact, more than a few so and sos.
Case in point - though this has to do more with weak writing. The main character finds out that someone in the police department is filming her at home (which turns out to be a lucky thing). She returns to the office, slaps him, and yells at him for filming her. End of scene. We don't know why he was, we don't know if they had some prior relationship, we don't know if he was obsessed with her - we don't know anything.
However, because of the performance of Anna Friel, I recommend this. Just don't expect answers to everything.
