Red Rock

I *hate* soap operas. I hate daytime drama. I wouldn't be caught dead watching an American soap opera and had I known Red Rock was a daytime drama, I would never, ever have even downloaded the first episode.

Let me say, I'm truly grateful I didn't know, because this is a great show. It's a lot more NCIS than it is Days of Our Lives.

I've given up watching anything American other than sci-fi shows, and have been scraping the depths of my Amazon Prime account for great international shows. Red Rock is definitely, wonderfully binge-able watching. The characters are flawed and real. The relationships are complex, and nobody is television "perfect." No blonde bombshells with vapid, overworked makeup, here. The cast seems to have been chosen because they have their own faces, and because they can...gasp...actually act. Villains you love to hate, lovers you love to love..Shakespearean tragedies...Red Rock has them all.

Episodes are like chips, you can't eat just one. Only 25 minutes long, I'll watch one episode and find myself, hours later, on episode 25. It's not deep or intellectual, but Red Rock will keep you entertained for hours and hours. I highly recommend it.

Before I started watching Red Rock I had seen a headline using a quote from an actor in the series saying they couldn't wait to be "knocking Fair City off their perch" with this new show. I taught this was mad as Fair City bad and all as it is, is still the main Irish soap opera around. After watching the first 6 episodes of Red Rock, I am sure it will knock Fair City "off their perch".

As the show opens with the death of a young man from a local feuding family we are drawn into every detail going around about the death as if we were members of An Garda Síochána. The show has so far shown how close the community is and has indicated at what the future holds with locals in corruption, law breaking Gardaí, the re-igniting of feuding local families the 'Kielys' and 'Hennessy's', behind closed doors relationships and the hopes and dreams of some members of the Gardaí being crushed.

While the show is still in it's early days and TV3 has commissioned the continuing drama for the next two years with 160 episodes to come. I hope to be for a long-haul of excitement, with every episode already ending on the note of the typical soap cliffhanger.

I was really excited about this show during the first season, but by the second season it becomes clear that every character is a total mess. Poor decisions, dishonesty, corruption, crime, stupidity...Every single one of them. It's hard to like anyone or care what happens to them. Too bad, because the acting is really top notch.

At 25 minutes or less an episode it breezes along. 2 feuding families and a Garda station with varying degrees of competence and corruption. As a soap it knows how to suck you into love/hating the characters quickly, and by episode 20 you really want the bad guy to get his, and by episode 30 he may be close to doing so. Will they drag it out some more? To keep us on our toes we have the good guys continually showing their clay heels, strong characters with holes, and a truly white trash family vying with one not much better, merely richer. Can cops be really as dumb as Westlife and Paudge? Will Sharon get justice or will she tell them all to shove it?

Very entertaining.

I learnt of this TV series via an article in The Mail's TV planner. It promised to be punchy, and punchy is exactly what you get. For quite some time now daytime telly drama has proved to be weak, watered down and frankly boring. What a huge and pleasant surprise this Police Drama turned out to be. I was hooked from the very 1st episode. The 2 series aired on the BBC 1 channel have touched base with such subjects as murder, drugs, gangland warfare, paedophilia, inter family disputes, bribery, you name it, Red Rock has it. The show is a credit to Irish TV, I have never heard of the cast names before, but I'm well and truly hooked. The sad thing now, is that UK viewers have to wait until 2017 for series 3.....Roll on 2017 I say....