Culprits

I am honestly baffled as to what happened with this series. It started out so strong, with a compelling mystery and strong characters at its heart. Joe / David is phenomenal and his backstory compelling. The flashbacks of the heist were an excellent choice too, slowly piecing together what happened like a jigsaw puzzle.

Then from around the last half of episode 4 onwards, it's like the writers just headed out and they brought in the work experience B team to take over. Characters suddenly make ridiculous choices and act in stupid ways that completely defy who they were established to be at the start. Like David, who is shown to be assassin-level skilled, who then clumsily tries to hide away from the killer in a French farmhouse like he's a defenceless child. Also the killer incidently can't be killed either by an ACTUAL assassin (who can take out 10-15 private secrurity tacticians with ease, but not a skinny bro with a tracksuit and some fresh Reeboks) even with a full gun clip.

Oh and apparently you can find anyone anywhere in the world if you're skilled at using Facebook - even if they have gone off-grid to a snowy tundra in Germany. And others also in hiding will post pics of their signature artwork on Insta with clear landmark locations to help you out.

Also according to Culprits if you're black and approach fully in-use public storage lockers in a crowded London train station, the police will immediately single you out and treat you with suspicion.

Let's also not forget that stuffing a body into a car boot in the middle of a London Council estate will attract zero attention apart from the killer who will watch you from a high rise, while eating an apple. Because why not right?

We also have being shot in a fully white uniform, which is bad enough to literally cover a train bathroom in blood, but not enough to. Get it on your equally white trenchcoat, as that would arouse suspicion and concern, and not serve your silly plot. Oh and apparently the character literally 'didn't feel' it when it happened. You got SHOT in the stomach mate, get a grip.

Oh yeah and a suburban dad and his young kids ( the latter of whom also have no idea wtf is going on) can get away from a house full of trained killers in the middle of the night as long as they have David on the phone guiding them, getting them to hide behind doors and kitchen islands. Clearly the hitmen in this show needed a bit more training.

Lastly it just irked me that they did a bank job with silly half masks to look cool in promo shots, but that do zero to hide their identities. Like bro, you heard of balaclavas?

I really tried to love this and it started as an excellent 9/10, but it is honestly like the main writers took a vacation halfway through. As a writer by trade myself I can tell when new creatives have joined the fray, and in all seriousness I am convinced that others took over. That's the only way you can explain the baffling drop in quality.

Edit: I looked up the writers of each episode and actually episode 4 is when new writers joined the show's creator, and lead writer. So this explains it perfectly - the new writers clearly took over and diluted the quality.

Shame really.

Enjoyable crime caper romp once you suspend disbelief and settle into compulsive viewing and treat yourself to 10 episodes of " what's gonna happen next " ? Excellent performances by all the cast , and particular credit to an actor playing " Muscle " who was previously unknown to me but who I would expect to see and hear alot about in the future . Marvellous cameo appearance by the ever reliable ( if OTT ) Eddie Izzard and Gemma Atherton played the anti-heroine beautifully, menacingly brilliantly. I would not be disappointed if there was a squel and it stands alone well as a one off but more of this would be welcome.

My favourite genre, but so few of real quality. We watch in hope of finding another gem and this combines three components in one series: recruiting a team for a one-and-done job, the getaway, and the aftermath. The aftermath is the main story, having completely left old lives behind and beginning anew with new identities and untraceable lives - my favourite part to see how they pull this off in the modern security camera-social media-AI-facial recognition world. That's what keeps me watching. But the setup/recruitment for the job with Gemma posing and preening as a cliched, hard as nails crime boss is pitiful. I like her in other roles, but this is ridiculous. Too many movies/series have actors posing ridiculously as cliched toughies and it is way beyond capacity for suspension of disbelief. It can work in action films because of the fast pace - you scoff/laugh but the grunting and choreographed fight scenes/car chases move you relentlessly along without pause so they get away with it. That's the trick of action films, just good fun. But these slower paced jobs that want to be taken seriously cannot get away with this Milli Vanilli approach of stylish pretence as a substitute for substance. Gemma stepping straight out of wardrobe and immaculate colour-coded makeup, Jo muscle stepping straight out of the hair salon with a new, immaculate hairdo... just stupid.

I agree with the frustration expressed by others about taking the time to introduce competent, skilful characters only to have them behave out of character an episode later... why bother! We have an assassin who never misses, unless she's shooting at an old bloke in a tracksuit... all of a sudden she's inaccurate, only when shooting at this one guy... total role reversal. A professional assassin with a safe, spacious, anonymous, art filled storage lock up with power and a cache of weapons but... no meds, no first aid kit... has a fridge but zero provisions - full of one brand of soda. But whatever you do, don't hole up there because it's not set up as a safe room bolt hole... but the biggest somersault is Gemma's stoic unemotional character morphing into a weepy girl in the final scenes.

I know there were no female characters in Reservoir Dogs team, nor the Layer Cake team, nor the Snatch or Oceans 11 crews. I get this is targeting a broader audience in a different era and the obligations to include more female characters and gay characters - but you have to make it work. Genna is too young for the role, and the costume/hair/makeup departments got her character wrong, I get they were going for control and authority but it doesn't work... and then at the end they totally backflip on their initial intention and her character totally loses control and goes to water emotionally.

Pick a fvcking approach - if you want to write strong female characters, don't be such hypocrites and morph them into weepy emotional train wrecks when you are tooooo fvcking lazy and unimaginative to write a coherent finale without fatally compromising your supposedly strong female character. Shame on all of you - writers, director and producers. Pathetic.

The other characters are not worth mentioning.

So it's my genre, and I've watched to the end, and I'm still left dissatisfied and craving quality.

The naysayer who criticised the IMDb description of a comedy? You're quite right. A comedy, this ain't. But, and this is an important point, children, IMDb's idiocy isn't the show's fault. OK, this is a wonderful example of the heist/caper genre with all the usual twists and turns, characters and plot points - but done better than you've seen before. Characters are perfectly written and plot points are predictable but only after the event - I could have/should have seen that coming - but I didn't. This is an always engrossing and sometimes thrilling take on the genre which has been seriously underrated so far. I think I know why.

It's a decent watch, but only if you don't think too hard about the things that happen throughout it.

I'm only on episode 6, but already the things that have happened are far too unrealistic, if you were really to do a job like this, you'd have to have reconstructive surgery with the technology we have at our disposal today, David/Muscle only cuts an inch of his hair off, the rest are unchanged and are surprised they're getting found! That's is just one of MANY reasons not to take this series too seriously, so don't go into this thinking it's a hard core crime thriller, it's more in the realm of a light superhero scenario with the super powers being able to occur things they need as and when out of thin air almost.

But still enjoyable while you watch.