No Return

A family's worst nightmare becomes a reality, when on holiday in Turkey, their sixteen year old son is arrested for sexual assault.

It's good telly, I don't think you can read to much into how factually correct it is, or whether the characters would behave in the way that they do, some of the behaviour is very odd let's say.

Parts one and four were very good, with plenty of content, the two middle episodes, it's not that they lulled, they felt more like soap opera, the focus was too much on the family's melodrama, and not on the plight of Noah.

The acting cannot be faulted, Sheridan Smith, who seems to be in everything at the moment, puts in a fine performance, you can't fault her character's plausibility. Best of all, Is the central character, Noah, young Serkis is fantastic, he's so capable.

Smith has definitely been busy filming this year, in Eastern Europe for The Teacher, and in Spain filming this.

Genuinely the prison complex is less of an eye sore than the hotel, which is genuinely a hideous Lego block of concrete, it's genuinely as bad in real life.

Let's applaud it for telling a different type of story, the script is questionable, the acting was excellent, 7/10.

I feel I am being generous giving this 5, but it was just about watchable. Very serious flaws, though. Mainly the writing and direction. I find it hard to believe that Sheridan Smith would have willingly performed the role in the way she did. Her expressions in the courtroom scenes were especially poor. The mawkishness of the storylines steadily descended in to ever deeper cringe.

Having written all that, I'm asking myself whether it does really deserve the 5/10. I'd better sign off before I adjust it downwards.

This is a complete mishmash of a plot. Certain things don't add up. There are too many loopholes in the plot, reacting is cheesy in particular the lawyer. It will leave you empty and wondering why you watched it, which I did. If you have ever seen the comedy programme Benidorm in which Sheridan Smith Acted this pretty much seems similar but it's not supposed to. Oh dear oh dear.

A family populated with unlikeable characters go on holiday, there's a incident...

Trouble for me was, by the time the alleged incident occurs, which is only minutes into the first episode, I no longer cared what happened.

I persevered, purely because Sheridan Smith always gives good value, however her character, along with pretty much every other, was so deeply unlikeable as to be impossible to empathise with.

The side drama involving Smith's character's sister was utterly pointless and appeared to be there solely to pad the story out to fill four hours.

A shame really, the potential was there for a gripping drama, instead what we ended up with was something that would have been more suited to a four episode Eastenders/Coronation Street storyline.

Make your own mind up , no spoilers here.

It's a poor storyline that hobbles along. Some reasonable acting making the most of it all. Sheridan Smith doesn't come anywhere near some of her previous performances whilst playing the abrasive worried mother. These problems are offset to a degree by a couple of notable roles such as " I am the circus master" solicitor.