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First of all , I love Benedict Cumberbach This man can do alot of incredible things and every work for him is masterpiece ... This series is talking about toxic father son relationship and how it can affect on people years and years after sexual abuse or violence or any abnormal stuff The photography was amazing the shots were incredibly fantastic May be the first 3 episodes had a slow rhythm but eventually it's a good experience and I'll always be happy to watch Benedict Cumberbach acting

Benedict Cumberbatch gets to show all his chops in this brilliantly written, directed and shot tour de force.

We all knew he could act, but here he gets to pull out all the stops. He is entirely believable as an upper class, abused and abandoned boy who turns his life and his will over to Heroin as his only source of succor.

The writing is sublime, you don't want to miss a moment of the razor sharp dialogue or of the inner monologues of Patrick.

The portrayal of a junkie at the peak of his chaos is completely and utterly believable. As one who suffered a childhood under a martinet father and is somewhat acquainted with the self medicating regimes that Patrick practices, I can testify to that.

I urge all viewers with an adult sensibility to watch this bizarrely charming, compassionate, tragic and comedic miniseries...

I've never read the books prior to seeing this piece of work. The idea of a person from such a well off background suffering seems almost alien, almost contemptible. Who, as someone so fortunate can make themselves feel so small when those who have so little can be happy. It is this very dilemma which made me want to dislike the show. And yet, I found this episode, and hopefully the rest extremely touching. If you've ever had trouble with drugs or self-loathing you cannot help but feel the humanity and truth in the work. This work transcends class, the part where Melrose looks content after shooting up, staring aimlessly into the world is so understandable and relatable you can't help but feel compassion and emotion. If you've ever been high or on drugs and looked out to the world while sitting in your bed while content, you'll understand what it is like to be Melrose, that feeling is forever it seems. Yet, when you wake up, the fleeting happiness you felt dispels and you feel the sad self loathing of existence;the tomorrow.

Cumberbatch performs incredibly in capturing the second-guessing inner monologue of someone overwhelmed with emotions. His charisma and ability to act vividly using facial ques and ticks makes this work what it is, yes, the writing is fantastic, but the life Cumberbatch brings to those words is what makes it unique.

The Melrose books are five of the finest of modern times. Short, sharp and endlessly enriching. For the TV adaptation to be so perfectly in synch with the tone and mood and truth of the books is beyond impressive. All components combine to form a complete and entrancing whole. Superb direction by Edward Berger - that long tracking party shot in Ep 3 is of immense skill ans beauty - hits the subtly different style and heart and tone of each separate book, with the look of a Holbein painting and the unflinching eye of a Hockney. The result is exquisite and simply takes the breath away. Design and period detail is mesmerising, even down to the Prozac label written on a daisywheel printer. Casting is sheer perfection. Mix the wonderful Pip Torrens with Indira Varma, Holliday Grainger Harriet Walter, Amanda Root and the cream of a British and American supporting cast, and a sensitive child actor in Sebastian Matz,with a chilling Hugo Weaving and a fabulous Jennifer Jason Leigh and any other show would be sublime in itself. Add Benedict Cumberbatch as the eponymous Patrick Melrose and the whole series transcends into something far beyond sublime. We are now used to seeing the actor of his generation taking complex and unique characters and making them deep and humane, but this takes performance to a different level and standard. This is acting by inhabiting a role. This is acting at a dangerous level of self and self exposure far beyond mere performance; This is an acting consciously laying the soul on the line....and revealing that there is still more inside the heart of Benedict Cumberbatch to be revealed.. High intelligence,mordant wit, self knowledge and loathing, turning on a sixpence, great timing and awareness; not tricks, no weaknesses.. Whenever I watch a new Cumberbatch performance I marvel at his range and detail, physical and mental control, depth of understanding and even his eye placement. And this is what you get when heart, intellect and sheer technical skill combine with such fluent artistry. Something wondrous and joyous and with an indication that the tank is nowhere near empty, even when exposing his own soul like this. How sad that there are people on here who are scoring this amazing series as a 1 and proud of their myopia. As the man said:' when someone puts you down, it is because they have a need to feel taller.'.

I can't remember the last time I saw a series this good. It is brilliantly made. Amazing acting. I was on the edge of my seat most of the time. Cumberbatch gives an outstanding performance.

I have just watched the first 2 episodes and felt the need to comment. I understand the complaints about the first episode, especially in regards to the self indulgent trip of substance and alcohol abuse. I'll be honest, it bored me, it became tedious and I almost gave up. Episode 2, however, is a different ball game. This goes on to explain his troubled childhood and puts the first episode into perspective. If you found the first episode difficult to watch, please stick with it, I have a feeling it will be worth it.

Outstanding performances by all of the actors, especially the leads. It brings the books to life, which seemed to be an impossible task. The design, directing, sound/music all enhance a wonderful production.

Though the main character is rich and privileged, the stories and underlying themes apply to many who have suffered abuse of any kind. The narrative shows the hard work involved in becoming the person you were meant to be.

Kudos to all involved in this magnificent production.

I finished the novels only a few weeks before watching the first episode and my rating thus far is only based on the first episode. The genius of the novels is turning such ugliness into something beautiful. The bookend decision to start the first episode with the second novel was a smart one from the overall story standpoint as well as thematically. However, the downside, is that the second novel/ first Espinosa is probably the toughest watch/ read as it is Patrick at his worst. Having said that, in a mannner true to the source material, the show creators have managed to take license where necessary in order to stay true to the character as well as the themes. The "plot" is not relevant. It's takes a long term view to realize that. If you had to pick the worst day of your life and watch it, that would not be pleasant either. But the genius of the source material as well as the first episode is that we can relate to Patrick- warts-and-all. Self loathing is relatable to manner, no matter how extreme. This is the first chapter in the story of a man deciding to stop reacting to life and start responding. If you can see past the "ugly" you will find the beauty. Much like in life. I look forward to seeing the upcoming episodes and watching the brilliant Benedict Cumberbatch play the role that I can no longer see anyone else in.

Directed by Edward Berger, and written for the screen by David Nicholls, this five-part miniseries is based on the semi-autobiographical Patrick Melrose novels by Edward St. Aubyn, published between 1992 and 2011.

Each of the episodes is based on a single novel, with each set in a different year. In the first episode, "Bad News (2018)" (set in 1982, and actually the second novel in the series), Patrick (Benedict Cumberbatch), in the midst of a debilitating heroin addiction, receives word that his sybaritic father, David (a truly terrifying Hugo Weaving), has died in New York, and Patrick must collect the body. In "Never Mind (2018)" (the first novel in the sequence), as Patrick goes through heroin withdrawal upon returning from New York, he thinks back to 1967 and his time on holidays in the family's French villa and the first day that David raped him. In "Some Hope (2018)" (set in 1990), Patrick, now clean, reluctantly attends a banquet for Princess Margaret (Harriet Walter). In "Mother's Milk (2018)" (set in 2003), Patrick, now sober for several years, and working as a barrister, visits the villa with his family. His mother, Eleanor (Jennifer Jason Leigh), is extremely sick, having suffered a stroke, and Patrick is shocked to learn that she wants to change her will, leaving the villa to Seamus Dourke (Jonjo O'Neill), a New Age guru whom Patrick believes is manipulating her. The stress results in Patrick drinking heavily. In "At Last (2018)" (set in 2005), Patrick's drinking has spiralled out of control following the dissolution of his marriage.

The show wastes no time in establishing straight out of the gate how severe Patrick's addictions are. In the opening scene of the first episode, he answers a telephone, to learn that his father has died. However, it's immediately apparent that something isn't right with the scene, with Patrick looking and talking as if he is slightly out of sync with everything else. Struggling to keep himself upright, he sways, droops, seems about to fall asleep, all the while holding the receiver in his hand. Then he bends over. Is he consumed with grief? No, he's just spotted a syringe on the ground, and he wants to shoot up. Upon hanging up the phone, he then stares at the syringe, and his eyes come into focus for the first time. It's a stark introduction to the character, immediately establishing where his priorities lie at this point in his life and indicating the hold drugs have on him.

Within this episode, an unusual stylistic device is used to draw us into Patrick's interiority. As he's getting higher and higher, he begins to employ more and more voices, carrying on a dialogue between them, but not in the sense that he speaks aloud in one voice and then answers aloud in another. Instead, the show uses voice-over, with some of the conversation delivered as standard dialogue, spoken out loud by Cumberbatch, and the rest coming from within Patrick's head, so that only the audience and Patrick himself can hear it. This sense of subjectivity is enhanced even further via a plethora of visual techniques. For example, unnatural lighting changes correspond to his mood and glitches in the actual picture of the show itself happen in sync with his psychotic breaks. Most of these techniques are confined to the first episode, but the most prevalent is a technique that's used many times across the five - the bleeding of the past into the present. So, for example, Patrick remembering David shouting at him in the past will jerk awake in the present; a room in the present will remind him of a room in the past, and suddenly he'll be there; a lizard walking on the wall when he was first raped by David is a recurring motif throughout the show; he opens a door in 1982, and we suddenly cut to him standing in an open doorway in 1967.

Whilst the first episode may be the most formally inventive, this is not to say the others are aesthetically uninteresting. Each one is grounded in a different genre, adopting the appropriate tone for that genre, and featuring a vastly different colour palette from the others. "Bad News" is a yuppie version of ट्रेनस्पॉटिंग (1996), a dark night of the soul awash in non-diegetic purples and greens, where the formal chaos mirrors the breakdown of Patrick's mind; "Never Mind" is a lurid, lazy summer retreat, similar in design to something like Call Me by Your Name (2017), with a preponderance of deep yellows and reds, except, of course, the sensuousness of the imagery is here employed ironically; "Some Hope" is an Upstairs, Downstairs (1971)/Gosford Park (2001)-style comedy of manners, examining the ludicrousness of the class system, limiting the palette to mainly binary colours such as white and black; "Mother's Milk" (the only episode set over the course of several days) is partly a fish-out-of-water story and partly a psychosexual intellectual drama, wherein Patrick finds that although the French villa has lost its most hated figure, it still has the power to disturb; and "Mother's Milk" is a cold postmodern tragedy full of angst and unlooked-for self-discovery, dominated by metallics, greys, and blues. What Berger manages to pull off across these five hours is to force this compendium of different styles, themes, and tones into something resembling a cohesive artistic statement.

When it's not working to try to convey Patrick's subjectivity, the show deals with a number of themes; the ridiculousness of British royalty, the poisonous nature of the aristocracy, the corrupting power of wealth, the illogical importance of class, the unreality of the public school system, the cyclical nature of bad parenting, unfulfilled and/or thwarted ambition, depression, sexual abuse, and stoicism in the face of any ill (stiff-upper-lipped Britishness and all). However, perhaps the most salient theme is the idea that when you deeply hurt a child, when you do something to damage a child's very soul, the effects will continue to be felt by any who come into contact with that child for many years after the fact.

As is alluded to throughout the first episode, and as becomes painfully clear in the second, when he was a child, Patrick was completely at the mercy of an utter monster. After calling young Patrick to his room, ostensibly to tell him the story of King Shaka, but actually to rape him, David explains, speaking of Shaka's treatment of his soldiers, "what had felt like cruelty at the time was actually a gift. It was actually love. I don't expect you to thank me now, but I hope perhaps when you're older, you'll be grateful for the skill of detachment that I've instilled." Indeed, this scene is most chilling in what it doesn't show. When Patrick first comes to David's room, there is a shot of the perfectly-made bed on which David sits. After Patrick leaves the room, however, there is a shot of the bed in disarray. We never see what happens, because we don't need to. This is as well-directed a bit of cinematic shorthand as you're ever likely to see. Horrific in its simplicity.

For all this childhood trauma, however, the editing on occasion suggests, especially in episode four, that Patrick is turning into just as bad a parent as David (molestation aside). Seeing Patrick standing on the same balcony that David once used to lord it over his staff and family may not be particularly subtle, but it is effective. Indeed, this is the same balcony where David's sadistic power games were first revealed to the audience - spotting a maid precariously carrying a tray laden with china, David calls her, forcing her to stop, tray in hand. The longer he leaves her standing, the more difficult it becomes for her to hold the tray, and the more the china clinks, all the while he stares down at her, grinning, saying nothing, revelling in the power he holds over her.

Another important theme is a mockery of the aristocracy. This is seen most clearly in the third episode, and especially in the odious character of Princess Margaret. However, the theme is present throughout all five episodes in one shape or another. In "Never Mind", for example, the Melrose family and their circle of friends are shown to be humourless, vainglorious prigs. The show depicts a decadent, toxic, emotionally calcified, and morally bankrupt class of people belonging to another age, that has somehow lingered into modernity and is desperately holding on to its outdated traditions.

Of course, this also raises perhaps one of the most obvious objections to the show - "why should we care?" Well, in part, we shouldn't. Essentially, this is the story of a spoiled rich kid. It's the very definition of white male privilege, which isn't exactly a very sympathetic theme at the moment. And it never really manages to shake that identifying characteristic. But there is more to it than that. The narrative may not be especially interesting, focusing more on isolated anecdotal-type incidents rather than a classic cause-and-effect plot, but for the themes, for the humour, for what it says about the British peerage, and, especially, for Cumberbatch's performance, this is certainly worth checking out. True, so dominant is his work that on more than one occasion, it effectively turns into a one-man play, meaning if you're not a Cumberbatch fan, you definitely won't enjoy it. In that sense, he dominates proceedings too much. But despite the fact that we know Patrick is an obnoxious addict, there is enough humanity to ensure we remember the very real trauma beneath the bluster. And in that sense, it remains always compelling - brilliantly acted, and with a lot to say about a myriad of issues.

There were some strong performances - Patrick, his parents and his father's cohort were all played well. It is also a stylish series with good cinematography.

It was sometimes hard to grasp the time-line, especially in the later episodes - even though a date was put up now and then.

it kept me interested throughout, although I enjoyed the New York scenes the most.

This is seriously superb filmmaking - incredible direction and wonderful acting, including a supporting cast which shines. Hugo Weaving and Jennifer Jason Leigh are outstanding. But, of course, it's Cumberbatch who steals the show. His range here is absolutely incredible; it's maybe his finest hour on screen. Well done, HBO!

If misery is your thing then you'll love this mini series. It was step too far for me and I pity the author whose mind thought this whole plot up. I pray it's not biographical in any way. Now I'm off for a shower. I feel dirty.

Mostly loathsome aristos and wannabes snobbing up the world around them. Cumberbatch plays a self-indulgent druggie masterfully; Periodically - particularly during Episode 3 - he becomes more sympathetic, but not reliably so for the duration. Learning some of his backstory explains his overall persona, but doesn't evoke enough empathy to forgive his deleterious effects on others, or to rue the harm he does to himself. The acting and production values are first-rate; the characters presented are definitely not.

Benedict Cumberbatch is brilliant as Patrick Melrose. I must confess that in the middle of the first episode I considered not watching anymore as it is a very distressing issue however I am glad I did. This series touches on many issues and speaking out against what is wrong and defending children at all costs is paramount.

A fascinating mini-series with a challenging story. Benedict Cumberbatch played a great role and he was the soul of the series. The first episode was the best. This mini-series showed how hard it is to quit any addiction and, of course, it dealt with issues of sexual abuse that were challenging. Anyway, this mini-series should not be missed and watching it is not harmful.

Just stunning. I hope the story holds up, yet the skills of Mister Cumberbatch are worth the while all alone. I'm pretty old now (in fact, almost, to the month, exactely as old as Mr. C.), but there it is. A performance that still amazes me. Thanks.

Favorite line from episode 1: "What's the the point of a f*cking window when you can't jump out of it?" Patrick Melrose is awesome. You won't be able to take your eyes off the screen. I only wish that I could binge-watch the entire series, but tonight is only episode 1. This show is a triumph. One more thing: This is only my first time seeing Cumberbatch in anything. I'm now obsessed with him.

Benedict Cumberbatch is brilliant beyond description. Opening scenes are dark & hard to take, but stayed with it to see where it would go. Difficult, but so well done. Cumberbatch's acting is as addictive as Patrick's heroine fixes. WELL DONE - BRAVO!

Pretty sure that I won´t be reading the semi-autobiographical novels of Edward St. Aubyn, on which Patrick Melrose is based. I am so very sorry that any boy (or girl) should be put through such an ordeal, but I am equally sad that the rest of Aubyn´s writerly life then evidently became a quest for revenge. Well, it looks like he got it. Both his mother and his father are now etched into history as villains for eternity--or until the books and this series disappear.

On a brighter note, Patrick Melrose displays consistently excellent cinematography, and the acting of the lead protagonist (Cumberbatch) is quite good. I should say that the first episode struck me as gratuitous and sensationalist, and I am surprised that I continued on. It does get much better, but throughout all five episodes of the series the content is a clear and simple victimology theme repeated in a fugue-like manner.

One small nit-picky thing: how could the eight-year-old boy have such dark brown eyes, when the man had light blue? Does that ever happen in reality, where the color of eyes changes from dark to light over time?

I am as far from drugs, alcohol and child abuse as water from fire. But Benedict is so incredibly good at acting complex emotions that I could not tear myself from the screen. If you are able to appreciate genious acting, then this is your show. The story itself is not to everyone's taste. It is only alive because of Camberbatch.

I only kept watching it for so long because I was waiting for a good bit. Maybe it's just not my style, ok, maybe some people really like it (honestly, I find the 10's hard to understand!). But I am entitled to my opinion, that's why the reviews are here. It just rambled on and on and... well I gave it a 1 because 0 isn't possible - there was nothing here