msghall

A few episodes in and you realize why this four-episode show lasted only one year. It's full of potential, with solid acting from Laurie, the always reliable Knudson, a wonderful perfromance from Brune-Franklin and especially Helen McCory who puts her soul into this last performance before her passing.

But it's slow going. It doesn't help that a soppy, mournful French horn whines in the background through much of this.

But it's the writer and director who are most at fault here. The just can't get a sense of any kind of pacing, emotion or excitement. It's all too boring where we should have been on the edge of our seats.

Worth a gander. It might be something you like. Just don't expect a stellar BBC show.

Supposedly in Yosemite, this series is shot in British Columbia with Squamish's Stawamus Chief taking the place of El Capitan. It's really the highlight and primary star of this series. Otherwise, it's really a very slim story embellished with dull backstory and emotional relationships, occupying about 90% of this show. Which is a shame.

The series should have been a plot-driven, detective mystery but instead it's mired in relationship explorations. The relationships could have been improved with wittier, more incisive dialog instead of the soap opera we have here. Luckily, episodes four to six up the tempo and lets the plot unwind with less diversions than the first three episodes.

You can speed through this series in about an hour. That's all you need. The rest is filler and boring filler at that. The Stawamus Chief deserves better.

There's a good story here, buried under pages of useless dialog and soap opera diversions. But there's little else. Just filler after filler, so common with Coben adaptations. The lead actor is not very convincing, her layers of complex behavior never really telling us much about who she is. She's like a character in a book without dimension. But most of all, she's not at all likeable. She confounds because she is a paper-thin book character. She is hampered, like most characters here, with bookish dialog that doesn't ring true. It lacks wit and intelligence. I understand the show is aimed at the masses but it could do with a little bit of an enlightened script.