The Guilty

The body of 4 year old Callum Reid, who disappeared from a neighborhood barbecue five years earlier, is found near his home. DCI Maggie Brand (Tamsin Greig) leads the investigation after leaving his missing person search due to personal problems years earlier. The mother Claire Reid (Katherine Kelly) and her family are devastated. As the show flashes back and forth, there are secrets revealed.

This is another British dead-child show. It has yet another maternal primal scream. It's a story of small town dark secrets. I certainly like Tamsin Greig. The extended flashbacks don't always add to the tension. The most compelling and memorable scene is actually the Brands being confronted by their kid's teacher about his suspected autism. It came out around the same time as Broadchurch and is deficient by their comparison. It's fine by itself but it's the same ole song and overshadowed by its competition.

This is the sort of low-level armchair mystery that, I assume, is favoured by menopausal women who enjoy books by Ruth Rendell and the like. There's nothing wrong with any of that, of course, but very early into watching this series I began to feel that my intelligence was being insulted.

Surely I cannot be the only one who "solved" the case less than a third of the way in. And I doubt that I was alone in reaching an IMMEDIATE diagnosis for Greig's character's son, despite nearly three episodes of mindless denial from her.

I continued watching the series, mainly because I was hoping to be proved wrong; that there would be some ingenious twist at the end. There wasn't.

I was introduced to a cast of obvious red-herrings, dismissed them one-by-one using minimal amounts of logic and common sense, and arrived at a reasonable and likely conclusion, which was confirmed at the end, leaving me with little more than a mild form of self-satisfaction (which is distasteful and unattractive even to myself), and the rather gloomy thought that I am now three hours closer to my death.

Ultimately I would describe this offering as moderately diverting fluff. Perhaps the most entertaining aspect of the series was racking my brains trying to remember what I recognised Darren Boyd from.

I enjoyed this show and being only 3 episodes it was a quick easy show to watch. The acting was well done by all.

I do feel like the end result was obvious from the first half of episode one - maybe I watch too many crime shows? But I didn't find it too surprising. I did however still enjoy some of the little twists that popped up.

The main character (detective) was a bit annoying. Zero personality and in denial about her own child. The guy playing her husband was wasted in that role.

All in all I recommend if you like British crime shows, but I wouldn't put it anymore near as high up as Broadchurch for example.

There's nothing wrong with this show. Much like the show The Missing it graphically illustrates the distress of a family desperate to know what happened to their missing little boy. It has numerous twists and turns and is, as usual, brilliantly acted. Having said that, however, I'm docking this piece a point for the aggressive use of flash-backs, which confuse rather than enlighten, and, in my opinion, were unnecessary. They could have been inserted chronologically in an initial time-line. I'm also docking a point because the passage of the show doesn't really surprise. As a consequence it works for its date of production perhaps, but hasn't any legs. If this is the type of BBC/E-One thriller/who dun it production you enjoy then you won't be disappointed, but if you are arriving at this show from a more modern perspective there is a risk you'll be bored.

I do like this type of British drama however, and had no real problem with it, and certainly wasn't bored.

The show is fine. Far from great. Predictable. BUT I do absolutely HATE the way the parents (police officer and husband) behave regarding their son being "different". It's like the absolute WORST thing that could happen! They have an autistic child. Very high functioning. And they react as if they've been told he's terribly, terribly disabled. Can't be dealt with! Her reaction was over the top. Think of parents who are questioning their child's behaviour and seeing the obvious shame and reluctance to admit even the possibility there's something wrong. Thinking her child is "gone". Aaarrggghhhhh! I hate, hate, hate it. It's ridiculous. And for some reason the mother is completely and utterly morose about everything.