Guilt

I wasn't sure what to expect beforehand with Guilt, but I have to be honest, this is four hours of totally brilliant, entertaining drama. Part one contains the humour element, that humour doesn't run the whole way through, it takes on a more serious tone as it progresses.

The acting is first class. Sives and Bonnar are fantastic as the two different, but interdependent brothers. I have always been a fan of Bonnar, Summer of Rockets showed me just how good he is, he's fantastic. I must mention Ellie Haddington, I thinks she's terrific, she's so good here. Bill Patterson adds some real quality.

Expect it to get more serious as it develops, I assure you, you won't be disappointed. Four hours later you will discover what really happened to Walter. 9/10

This starts off with a dark but humourous episode and then gets darker and less humorous, but by the end of episode 3 then I was wondering how on earth the plot would be resolved in the fourth and final episode. No need to worry. That was a joy to watch in every way, with the writing and acting simply top notch. p.s. The guy that gave it 3/10 was referring to another series of the same name from 2016. Not this series.

As this series opens brothers Jake and Max are driving through an Edinburgh suburb at night. They accidentally run over and kill an elderly man. Max, a lawyer, tells his brother that he will go to jail if they report it. They establish that the man lived in the house they are in front of so take him back inside. Papers suggest that he had terminal cancer so they leave hoping his death will be considered natural. Of course things don't quite go to plan; the authorities may believe that he died of cancer but Jake gets a call saying his wallet was found in the house. He goes back and explains that he'd been there because he traded in old records and the man had a good collection. He befriends, and forms a relationship with Angie, the dead man's niece... which doesn't impress Max. Without going into details things later get complicated as Angie starts asking questions about the death; various older secrets are gradually exposed and the brothers find themselves in danger.

When I sat down to watch this show I knew nothing about it but assumed from the title it would be 'gritty' and a bit depressing... it may have moments of grittiness but it is far from depressing; in fact it is frequently hilarious. Much of the humour comes from Mark Bonnar's excellent performance as Max; it wasn't always what his character did but the subtle facial expressions as he did it. He was ably supported by Jamie Sives as his brother Jake; Ruth Bradley, as Angie; Emun Elliot, as private detective Kenny; Ellie Haddington, as a blackmailing neighbour; Sian Brooke, as Max's wife; and Bill Paterson as a local gangster. The story develops at a good pace with some plot lines originally seeming superfluous but later emerge to be essential to the story. Overall I'd definitely recommend this superior comedy drama.

The first season of Guilt is one of the most interesting, tense, and well-written suspense shows in recent times. It's full of intricate, well-crafted twists and turns, characters who feel like real people, side-plots that come together in wonderful ways. The acting is superb, especially Jamie Sives and Emun Elliot, but all the others are good. All in all, it makes for perfect binge watching.

The second season doesn't work nearly as well as the twists and turns that make the first so effective become laborious, complex, and eventually, way too hard to understand. By the third episode it's almost impossible to understand every character's motivation because they've all been switched and changed so often. The ending is nearly incomprehensible. And as good an actor as Mark Bonnar is, the camera tends to focus on him for interminable amounts of time, almost as if his face is actually part of the plot.

So the advice here is, indulge in the first season, skip the second. Apparently the third is in the works, and with luck, the show's creators will revert to their original intentions and pretend the second season never happened.

Guilty

This drama cleverly played with the dilemma of the opposing forces of doing the right thing and being punished for wrong doing. Either position was justified in turns and the two brothers took their corners.

The script was tight and well paced overall, there were, however, just a couple of places where we had repetition of one brother revealing something and the other flying off the handle, these repeats needed editing out and replacing with some scenic shots of bleak Scotland to ramp up the atmosphere.

Their deception spiralled out of control and it was a really very well written black comedy. The acting was first rate from everyone. We could have had more of everything, more car chases, more sex, more violence more drama please.

This drama had it all, I was gripped from the start and this is the BBC at its best in using the fabulous talent that lays at its feet.