Code of Silence

I found this show too stressful to watch. The principal character is a young woman Allison, who is a gifted lip reader due to her deafness. In a break from waitressing, she is temporarily recruited by the police of a British city, to lip read surveillance videos. The police clearly warn her, for her own safety and in order not to compromise their investigation, not to research the names or have any contact whatsoever with any of the subjects of the surveillance, who are very dangerous.

So, unbelievably, this is exactly what she does. She takes one foolish risk after another, with no sense of danger, with minimal precautions, and carries on oblivious to police warnings, in order to play detective. In the end, I found it just too stressful to watch, even though Allison was a personally very appealing character in several ways.

I see others had the same frustrations with the lead character's reckless behavior as I did at times. However, as each episode progressed I realized how badly she either wanted to prove herself or else attempt to help someone. Let alone appear invaluable to the police in hopes of bringing in much needed income. She had been dismissed her whole life & never given a chance. She said as much towards the end. I thought Rose Ayling-Ellis's acting here was superb. She hit all the right notes of naïvety, ambition, hope, love, frustration, fear & fearlessness. Her face was so expressive. I was really rooting for her & Liam. And the suspense was top notch. A bit of an overly tidy ending, but overall a refreshing POV & a fun binge watch.

Out of the 2 recent crime dramas with deaf leads, this is the better one. Code Of Silence has a far fetched premise but is so honest with it we're up for the ride. Great cast helps a lot but it's the slow building romance hiding in plain sight that makes this show a stand out. The main characters are flawed and constantly asked to question their moral compass which makes for a very fun watch. Yes the ending is very silly and unbelievable but this must be the first time a crime drama builds its storyline around a blossoming and forbidden love. Season 2 please! And with the same leads if possible!

I bingewatched the series over a couple of days.

The first episode was very good but then starts to slide into the same hum drum of many other dramas these days.

The premise of a deaf girl helping police in the cathedral city of Canterbury does seen rather similar to the recent Channel 4 series Patience which had an autistic girl helping police with their enquiries in the cathedral city of York a couple of months ago and it is only just over a month since Rose Ayling-Ellis appeared in Réunion on BBC 1 (she was also in Ludwig late last year set in the cathedral city of Cambridge).

You have to constantly watch the screen as there are a lot of subtitled parts but it wasn't totally engaging and really seemed to lose its way not knowing where the story was heading.

Itv's new liking for 6 part dramas can be a bit much for shows and this was no exception going on too long and included one officer having an affair which didn't really go anywhere in the story and then their was the robbery which really didn't make any practical sense.

Watchable but let's itself down.

Code of silence.

ITV can be hit or miss with its dramas but this one's a hit.

We really enjoyed Code of Silence as it was a bit different for mainstream TV. The story is good enough to justify the show and even though it has more than its fair share of 'aye right' moments it doesn't detract from the overall enjoyment. The show is very well paced and there's no fillers like there are on Netflix.

Rose Ayling-Ellis holds the whole thing together brilliantly. She was absolutely convincing in her role as Alison. She's very likeable even though her character never does a thing she's told. Keiron Moore is also very convincing as Liam. All the main cast are good like Charlotte Ritchie and Andrew Buchan and all are convincing with only the odd one letting the side down. Most of the eff bombs are unnecessary and feel unnatural in places. We don't need them and British TV should not be influenced by the vulgarity plaguing US TV.

We watched on ITVX with the subtitles on even though neither of us are deaf or hard of hearing.

I hope there's a second series of this because we liked it.