Murphy's Law

It shines when it stays local. When it tries to dive into international waters like with the Yakuza or the Russian mob, it fails spectacularly. It's easy enough to skip any episode that's not to your liking without missing much of the throughline. The most difficult suspension of disbelief is accepting Murphy undercover as a lounge singer. He's terrible. The show mostly holds up even almost 20 years after its debut. Worth the 2atch if you're not expecting too much from it.

This show is gripping. In the first season, Murphy is flirting, cracking jokes, and catching bad guys. Then it goes dark, way dark, but thrilling. He's a man who has nothing left to lose and doesn't shy away from the most dangerous situations. Nesbitt here is a far cry from the sad dad of Missing. Very attractive. No wonder all the women in the show are drawn to his extreme masculinity!

I'm a huge fan of UK/Irish crime dramas and mysteries, but this one did not work for me. The Murphy character is a cartoon Irishman, shallowly- drawn and made of cardboard. The plots are pretty unrealistic. Murphy is like a character in an Irish joke, a jerk who can out-drink, out-seduce, out-daredevil anybody.

This series is one step above reality TV. I found myself wondering why I should care about whether Murphy gets killed or not. He didn't seem much more likable than the thugs he was out to get.

In every episode, he should, by all rights, be killed, but of course, he squeaks by every time. This series is all bravado and no brains. If you want something with a tiny amount of intelligence and plausibility, look elsewhere. For an Irish drama that's worth watching, I recommend "Single-Handed".

We enjoyed the story lines for awhile. But the show is so dark (literally and story) you strain to watch the screen. The characters play well together which provides much of the humor too. After Series 1 the change from 90 minutes per episode to 55 minutes. This was absolutely a plus.

My wife and I just completed this series. We really liked it. It is very tense due to the undercover assignments that Murphy gets: one mistake and he is dead. James Nesbitt is great as Murphy.