The One That Got Away

As a big fan of good TV crime, I found a lot to enjoy here. The series is both exciting, has good characters played by convincing actors and filmed in beautiful surroundings in Wales. The series has 6 episodes. For my part, I think the quality of the episodes was variable. It starts very exciting, nail-biting, creepy and a promising start. Halfway through the series, I fall off a bit. The story becomes more elaborate with a focus on not only the current case, but also murders far back in time. Then I think there is a lot of dialogue, investigation, back and forth. This at the expense of the excitement that I am looking for in such series. But by all accounts, this one is far above the majority of crime TV. It just doesn't manage to keep me on my toes the whole way.

Just finished the English language version. Starts well, good cast, typical but credible murder mystery. Sadly many of these shows seem to be written without planning a proper ending so get lost in the woods. After a dozen red herrings it becomes obvious who dunnit. Why? There's only one person left! The ending is utterly ludicrous. Save your time by watching something better. The cast is excellent and do their very best to rescue this turkey from the mess it sinks to. You can actually see mike's in advance what's going to happen next. I feel sorry for the actors who have to wade through this bilge.

We like so much British TV we thought this would be good. It has Erin Rhys and she was great in The Mallorca files and there were other competent actors in the cast. The downfall begins in the "Welsh noir" of the writing and kinda twisty romantic sidestory and the plot of the murders. The colors and scenes in the filming are too dark or somber,, The sidestory in the end becomes the main plot and the solution to the mystery becomes more clouded or uncertain and for these reasons it leaves one very unsatisfied. It is similar to the Welsh series Hinterland or Y GWYLL which also started with promise and interesting quality but just got depressing. We were let down by the ending and twists in the storyline and abruptness of the finish and lack of resolutions.

Brits are pros at this - well-executed police procedurals. You can rely on them to have solid plotting and carefully planned dramatic arcs, capable actors, and three-dimensional characters with realistically grounded problems.

I enjoyed that the pacing wasn't rushed - however, the series could've been an hour shorter. (It annoys me that it appears "compulsory" nowadays to have at least 6 episodes for one story.) There were some unnecessary coincidences, and to be fair, all and all the series wasn't really that groundbreaking.

However, it was still a good binge with lovely Welsh scenery to boot.

It's very hard to carry a murder mystery over 6 episodes unless the script is great, and this script is far from it. In my experience Welsh crime dramas are glacially slow, it's a slow and painful process keeping up with them.

It is so full of cliches, like a bad American police procedural. A DI is brought back to her former station to work on a case similar to one she helped solve 10 years before. She teams up with her former colleague/lover. From there it's downhill full of cliches. Every new piece of evidence sends them down another rabbit hole. This isn't a "Grace" or a "Vera" or any of the top British crime dramas.

Great cast members like Richard Harrington and Elen Rhys deserve better scripts. This should have been 3 separate crime stories, 2 episodes each and it would have been more successful.