The Inheritance

I liked the opening device with the family introductions done via a video taken at a family Xmas party by the soon to die Larry Lamb.

This is an easy watch all round that isn't going to win any awards but does what it says on the tin. If you're looking for a pacey little family thriller full of twists and turns and dirty hidden secrets give it a twirl.

I couldn't quite work where it was set, seemed to be 'generic up north' with a patchwork of regional accents.

Original and ground-breaking no, a brilliant cast no, a bit soapy yes, but it had some good hooks and it lured me in. Worth a look if you enjoy family dramas.

Siblings Chloe, Sian and Daniel learn that their father has died, at the reading of the will, they are horrified to learn that their dad has left his estate to a wife named Susan, a wife the trio knew nothing of.

It's an interesting subject, families can be tight and loving, but throw money into the mix, and all hell literally can be let loose.

It's a bit of a slow burner, I struggled to get into the first episode, bud it gets better as it develops. As the bosh count rises, so does the intrigue. It's suspenseful, it's intriguing, it gives an insight into how fragile family unity can be.

It's one of Channel Five's better offerings, I'm enjoying their dramas more than many coming from the other networks.

The acting is rather good, they certainly went to town to assemble a very well known cast, we have the likes of Jemima Rooper, Robert James Collier, Gaynor Faye and Adil Ray, although you need to suspend your disbelief to believe that the trio are actual siblings.

How unusual to see a Channel five drama that's been filmed in The UK, and not Bulgaria or Romania etc.

7/10.

This show was pretty entertaining. The ending was pretty standard for a suspense program of this type, except they threw in a little twist that definitely caught me off guard.

I love the people saying it isn't realistic. Is even one of Shakespeare's plays realistic? In Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest, a man is mistaken for a fictional spy, so he chases the KGB across America, narrowly averting several assassination attempts, until he finally catches up to them on top of Mt Rushmore? Is that even remotely realistic? Nonetheless, it's considered one of Hollywood's greatest films.

Surprising as this may be, fiction is typically by it's very definition, fictional.

The story was pretty suspenseful, and the ending was way better than most shows like this. Half the time they build up all kinds of tension and then the ending is a huge let down. Because of the unexpected twist at the end, I definitely thought the big finish was fairly satisfying.

The acting was definitely convincing. I totally believed each of these characters was a real person struggling with some serious real-life distress. To be honest, most of the suspense came from the anxiety caused by waiting for the other shoe to drop in their personal lives.

Don't let the negative reviews turn you off or skew your perspective while watching this.

I enjoyed the concept of this series and found it very interesting and relatable. I have a similar situation in my family with a split family and siblings though in my case it wasn't a shock that came out at the reading on the will! I liked the dynamic among the siblings and the first two eps especially kept me hooked. Like many mysteries it lost its way a little toward the end and didn't know how to resolve in a clever way but it didn't spoil my enjoyment. Good Christmas viewing on my5 and I recommend it with the caveat that you take it for what it is. Final question that went unanswered- where was it meant to be set?

Started quite promisingly, but rapidly descended into a tangle of ludicrous sub plots. Coroners liaising with relatives of the deceased? Police who ask a suspect to "keep your eyes open for anything suspicious"? A family that had apparently not strayed far from their place of birth (although displaying a vast range of regional accents). And the cast losing any belief in the dialogue they were forced to utter along the way of the convoluted plot?

The whole thing was a train wreck, with two-dimensional character and not one likeable. It amazes me how a TV company can produce a series like this - is the production company given free reign with no editorial input?