Southcliffe

This is the first time I have seen anyone brave enough to point the finger at the community. 'Oddballs' are often as much the product of the community as they are self determination. There are always people in small towns who are picked on and abused, stripped of the self confidence to leave the situation, unable to withstand the status quo. That spree killings don't happen more often I find miraculous. Some people have nothing to lose, society has taken it all away. This is an excellent piece of drama, finely acted, brave enough to remove the focus away from the perpetrator for the majority of the 4 episodes. The really SHOULD have seen it coming.

This tries to be different and in the process just ends up a confused mess.

Could have been a decent crime mini series had it been told in a traditional way, but the way the time lines chop and change just end up making the whole thing disjointed. I thought I was going a bit loopy at first when things from a previous scene were repeated were repeated, it took a while to cotton on that this was the way the story was being told.

In its favour it does have a real sense of grimness to it, but that's not enough to rescue it unfortunately.

The acting is of a high calibre for the most part throughout and cinematography is atmospheric.

However, it just doesn't gel.

The first part of this was shown last night, and directed with a steady hand and unravelling at its own pace, its clearly a drama that's not going to be rushed.

The writers have taken the real events of Hungerford, Cumbria and Dunblane as their inspiration here, showing the characters and the sparks that lead up to one man (Sean Harris, brilliantly haunting) snapping and begin his random killing spree in a small fictional town in the UK. The tones here match the bleak morning fog of this sleepy coastal community and the camera takes it's time, not always showing you everything you want to see, a statement perhaps that the film makers here are willing to take risks and its all the better for it. Clearly taking well grounded advice from shows such as 'The Killing' time is taken to show all sides of a person so there will be more emotional consequence for the viewer later on as the first episode ended with the spree just beginning, though we were given a taste of this already at the start.

It's style won't be to everyone's taste and I am sure some will find it a bit slow, but in a time of never ending crap reality TV and repetitive game shows, its about time someone showed some balls and made these sorts of gritty dramas that we used to be so good at. It gets my vote and I look forward to seeing more tonight.

And then episode 4 happened. I got very confused. Claire was bonkers, I had not the first inkling what Chris was doing, nor the journalist dude, nor Chris's uncle. In fact the whole thing turned into a giant "Huh?" I couldn't quite grasp the reasoning behind any of their actions/behaviour. Nor did I really care as none of the characters were either likeable or relatable. A shame.

Very well done. Don't compare to everything else you have seen out there. More to come...