The Replacement

An absurd thriller which gets more absurd as it goes along. At the end you might be forgiven for thinking that the twists could had been done differently.

Ellen works for a successful architect's firm in Glasgow that lands a big contract but she soon gets pregnant. Ellen plans to return soon after having the baby and Paula is hired as the replacement. Paula is competent at her job and already has a 10 year old daughter. She took time out of her life to be with her daughter and be a full time parent during those early years.

Ellen is disturbed when Paula insists she should not return to work so quickly and she fears that Paula has another agenda, she might be malevolent. Pretty soon Paula impresses the bosses, clients and Ellen comes across as paranoid. Ellen is even accused of violence towards Paula and even child neglect. As her relationship with her boyfriend falls apart Ellen needs to expose Paula as a manipulator but as others think, it is Ellen who might be disturbed.

There is an element of Fatal Attraction here as Paula gazes at Ellen's perfect life, perfect family. The third episode should had been more intriguing but falls apart as many of the characters behave bizarrely.

This is more of a Scottish Lifetime Movie. Very long. Too long.

I am not sure why I watched this, especially after reading all the negative reviews. I should have believed them.

This is the same thing you've seen many times before - trust me! Only with a crying baby.

It's almost as if someone took all the parts of their favorite Lifetime Movies and tossed them together into this and set it in Glasgow. That's the smartest thing they did. It's a unique city for films and series.

But basically, other than the scenery, this is a waste of time. IMHO.

I really enjoyed this thriller. A slick, gripping, engaging three part drama which develops well, before a dramatic, albeit unusual conclusion.

Beautifully acted, the two main players Morven Christie (Ellen) and Vicky McClure (Paula) are excellent, bouncing off one another brilliantly, as you watch you get a true sense of awkwardness, almost loathing between the pair, the body language was expertly done.

McClure is always the good guy, moral, but here she has a killer smile, beautiful but deadly. Well acted all round, Dougray Scott, Siobhan Redmond etc, but it's the two lead actresses that shine.

The first two episodes are great, if a little padded at times, the third is definitely bonkers, and came in for a lot of criticism, but I enjoyed it, after two hours of meaningful stares they needed to do something different, and that they certainly did.

The finale wasn't what I was expecting, I had a different conclusion in my mind altogether, but I applaud it for being bold, too often you watch a drama which contains a flat conclusion, not here.

8/10, really enjoyed.

Okay, to be fair, I'm only two-thirds through, but already I'm rooting against the protagonist Ellen and for the supposed antagonist Paula. Ellen is a super annoying and passive aggressive Karen who stalks & sabotages her co-workers. Despite appearing completely incompetent at her job, her superiors fawn over-- does her husband (who she treats like sh-i-te). She suddenly gets pregnant and discovers the value of playing the new mom/baby card to get all the attention and manipulate people. Who's to say what will be revealed in the final episode, but something pretty bad needs to be revealed about Paula to make me hate her more Ellen.

It's basically a story about toxic femininity and women turning against each other at work. Not far away from reality in certain ways.

This excellent, suspenseful three part thriller was all the better for featuring identifiable locations in my ain hometown. The tension was skilfully ratcheted up episode by episode as a routine maternity-cover employee arrives at a successful Glasgow city centre architect firm, where young up-and-coming architect Ellen has just secured a major contract to design a contemporary library, but who gradually suspects her all-too-perfect stand-in Paula of taking over every aspect of her life.

But is she herself just being paranoid? Married to a psychiatrist (and whose mother was also a shrink), with whom she's just had their first child, we learn that they first met when she was his patient. Not until the conclusive final episode does it become abundantly clear just who the psychologically disturbed party really is, indeed there was actually a point where it seemed as if evil was going to win out but a miraculous near-death recovery precipitates an ending where just desserts are served all round, including to her less than staunch husband and loose ends are tied up.

The title of the piece might seem unimaginative but in fact once the evil-doer's intentions become clear, it's obvious that it's not only her rival's job as lead architect that she's attempting to replace.

The idea of the deranged home-wrecking female of course has been around for years but I liked the twist here of the real motivation for the perpetrator's deranged actions which again aren't revealed until the end and turned out to centre on child-loss bereavement. Actually, whilst saying that, I was probably a little disappointed when a murder occurs out of nowhere in the form of the suspicious death of the wife of the husband and wife business owners, as I thought at that stage the drama didn't need any further heightening but thankfully it didn't trigger a spree of killings which narrative restraint I must admit I appreciated.

The acting by the principals was very good throughout, Morven Davies as the triumphant young career-mother who can't quite believe what is happening to her, Dougray Scott as her conflicted but admiring boss and especially Vicky McClure, last seen on the right side of the law in "Line Of Duty", now excelling as the unhinged Paula, portrayed almost as a Mary Poppins' evil doppelgänger.

Sure there were some holes in the plot and some of the characters' actions and motivations didn't always add up, but in the end it played out very well in a clear, bright production (it's shot almost entirely in daylight, office hours with no clichéd danger-at-midnight darkness scenes) that was well-filled, well-paced, well acted and well executed.