Coma

I came here, expecting to see 9.5/10 or even 10/10 for COMA. However, I see the aggregate reviews for this masterpiece are 6.5/10! What were these other people watching? Was it the most riveting tense drama in years? Was it the ingeniously written plot? Or was it the absolutely incredible acting by all concerned, particularly Jason Watkins?

Right from the start, the tension builds and builds as we see an ineffectual harmless man plunged into a nightmare not of his making. His life is literally collapsing around him. The actor who played the main villain was off the scale and his love of fine red wine was such a clever unexpected touch.

Please ignore these other reviews,. There are other programmes entitled "Coma" so maybe they were watching another programme, I don't know. Watkins and Ben Edwards deserve BAFTAs for this.

I was really looking forward to this drama because of the excellent cast. Jason Watkins has been consistently excellent in everything I've seen him in. The problem with this is the fanciful script. It's too silly for words. The characters aren't that likeable. Jason Watkins' character is a complete "Wally". It's hard to believe his wife would be in a relationship with him as he's so helpless.

The story became more unbelievable with each episode. I was at the stage where I was expecting them to discover Lord Lucan hiding in their garden. It could have been a really dripping story but was let down by the weak script. I love British drama but this was a big let down.

I was looking forwards to viewing this as I liked the three main leads.

However a poor script ;often too repetitive gave the series a lack of drive.

The police were once again portrayed as inadequate buffoons.

The young actor who played the lout showed only a characture of what was a pivotal role ,though again this was the script rather than the actor.

The story could have been told in one episode My version was that Simon should have told Paul that it was his(Simon's) boss who hit the boy.

Then when Paul had dealt with this person,Simon could have anonymously phoned the police with details of the offence. Paul would be arrested and locked up and Simon was off the hook having only to deal with junior psycho.

Coma is a brilliantly tense thriller, over four hours of increasing intensity, there are no loops here just escalations.

It centres around a mild mannered Jason Watkins and a single moment, tormented by just about everything and anyone he snaps and his world unravels. Pretty soon he's sitting uncomfortably in wine bars with petty gangsters and lying to the police.

It is also awful, a great set of core names wondering what they are doing here. It is filmed in Eastern Europe and that doesn't get lost - it simply looks nothing like anywhere in the UK.

Somehow this manages to be enthralling, tense and awful at the same time.

It's 4 hours - it's channel 5 - there are worse things on TV to watch!

After last weeks excruciately awful Love Rat I was hopeful that with jason watkins heading the cast ,that Coma would break the cycle of successive rubbish being served up by budget broadcasters Channel 5. Lack of finance has never stopped Ken Loach producing brilliant and relevant drama. However Coma could have been so much better in dealing with the problem of low life adolescent criminality. Unfortunately the makers of Coma chose to take the path of allowing actors such as jonas armstrong overact his part as local psycho gangster. Are we really living in the dystopian world portrayed in Coma. I don't believe so. Just remember mr Watkins to strike this one off your cv.