Down Cemetery Road

This had the potential to be an amazing thriller but the narrative is flawed. The work of Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson is excellent, and story setting Oxford is really intriguing. Here it's a thriller with some comedic moments.

But the acting and story line of the intelligence services in London is totally mismatched - it's almost as if it's from a different show. The change in tone is very jarring and totally misjudged in my opinion. It detracts from some of the tragic moments elsewhere in the show.

That being said it's a good story and I look forward to the rest of the episodes. Both Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson have some great acting moments.

It's just a shame that the producers and writers couldn't agree on the style.

Sometimes a show is simply a show-and that's enough. I'm drawn to the people, the quirks, the small absurdities. The story carries a kind of endearing clumsiness that feels intentional. It reminds me of Slow Horses, which isn't surprising given the producers' shared creative DNA.

Yes, much of what happens is unlikely to occur in anyone's real life-but then, what show truly mirrors life? The score is curious: discordant and unique, yet oddly comforting in its quieter moments.

The central cast does the heavy lifting here. At first, the lead's abrasiveness grated on me, but before long, you start to glimpse the world through her fractured but fascinating lens. The show is layered in ways that may not be immediately obvious. Reading through other reviews, I suspect many viewers missed that depth because they bowed out too early.

We're only on episode three, and I find it hard to understand how anyone could deliver such sweeping, entrenched judgments so soon. Still, when someone hates something, they tend to hate it loudly. For my part, I'm enjoying it-and I'd encourage anyone with a little time to spare to give it a chance. I just felt the need to speak up in its defense.

That said, it's not a series I can binge or rewatch endlessly the way I can with Slow Horses. That probably says more about where I am personally-navigating the aftermath of an unhappy marriage and a recent divorce-than about the show's quality itself.

With Slow Horses on hiatus after its season finale, I've got several months to wait for the next chapter. In the meantime, Down Cemetery Road makes for a thoughtful, offbeat stand-in. In my humble opinion, it's worth the time.

Enjoy-and best wishes.

First, it's so nice to see Ruth Wilson again. Having just finished rewatching Luther, it's refreshing to see her in this role.

Emma Thompson plays her character well.

She is such a versatile actress.

The visual effects in the first episode were impressive.

I find the 1st episodes interesting enough to continue the series. Interested in seeing where this goes!

As a few others are pointing out here, there's a new wave of crime shows that try to mix drama and comedy, quirky and comedic characters with more "real" characters. Sometimes it works, like in the first seasons of Slow Horses, or in Department Q, and sometimes it doesn't, like in this case. Ruth Wilson is in full drama mode, she frets, and frowns and overacts in every scene, while Emma Thompson just... chills... and seems to desperately try to do what Gary Oldman does in SH but with a very different outcome. The result is that the two of them don't seem to belong to same story and the show feels very uneven and, ultimately, watching this show feels like eating steak and dessert at the same time. Not terrible, just weird.

OMG people get past the first episode, before reviewing I have seen so many series that didn't catch my attention in the first episode then became absolute firm favourites...I'm third episode in and now hooked, strong cast nothing is quite as it seems, as definitely not as predictable as I initially presumed which is always a delight.