A Grande Ilusão

Really! The first ten minutes were very good, but hindsight now shows me they were very bad and the whole show just stunk !. I must have missed something. I'm not going to watch it again to find out. We are sold a turkey and red herring from the get-go. I watched it last night and can't get it out of my head. Why oh why have they done this to me? Did I spite the script writers, director and actors in a previous life? My advice for all....... AVOID. I wish I had. I am not familiar with the author, but many here rate him highly. Is he better than this or is this his groove ? Oh well, you lose some , you win some.

I have to write because it seems that only people who dislike this series take the trouble to come to IMDb and register their opinion.

This mini TV series is very well executed. My compliments to the entire cast who did a great job. I found actors here being very talented and competent, even those with minor roles. I didn't know those British actors except Joanna.

The plot is full of twists and I really didn't expect the final, very surprising.

Maybe one minor thing here and there which is not properly explained. One think that bothers me a little bit is the characters constantly withholding information from each other, everyone with their own secrets - after a while it gets a bit too much.

But I give a 7 to this entertaining series which came as a good surprise specially in the work done by its cast and the little details inserted in the story line related to how characters interact with each other in daily life which was pretty sharp. I recommend.

I don't understand all the bad reviews.

I mean it has some holes in all episodes but not the first or the last show with the holes in the script.

I saw this leading actress for the first time and I liked her. Acting in this series was on point, as far as I'm concerned.

Also, some people here are asking lame questions like why did some character did this, or that. Some things were just obvious and guys, sometimes you can explain some things simply by yourself, don't expect everything from the directors to give you on a plate. Like, what's the point then?

I find this show interesting, sometimes a little bit boring but yet it kept me interested and confused. Lots of twists and turns. The ending was not at all dissappointing like some people say here, it had to be that way, I didn't see any other ending or way out for the leading actress.

A decent 7 for me. The only thing I was a little bit annoyed was the kids who acted like a little police officers.

It is watchable, give it a shot..

Throughout this unintentionally hilarious mess I kept thinking, what does this acting remind me of?

Then it hit me, the tone, delivery and mannerisms were conjuring up something from some dark recesses of my mind.

Tracy Beaker ! It feels like a surreal and violent episode of Tracy Beaker. After this realisation I really started to enjoy the show, not as the creators intended, but as a farcical camp comedy laced with atrocious acting, dialogue and casting.

Keegans character pushes the boundaries of believability to the furthest it can go, an ex military hardass, despite weighing about 8 stone and being half the height of the men she throws about.

Truly awful entertainment for an audience of imbeciles.

Good fun though !

Another mystery set in an affluent suburb (British in this case), in which a wealthy, picture perfect family is torn apart by buried secrets.

There is something exhausting about watching the same plot reworked in all possible permutations. Coben mini-series are usually clever, but this one suffers from a massive logical flaw that renders the whole story absurd.

Cliche warning: It has many. How many people have best friends who know all about hacking and can run down license plates and do background checks? Tthere is the inevitable scene of someone correctly guessing a computer password. Writers should just stop putting passwords on computers instead of subjecting us to these scenes. And there are just a few too many coincidences and connections as the story unfolds.

As for casting, the plucky female lead is not quite convincing as the ex-military tough gal she is supposed to be. She is just too small and thin to believably take down some of the larger men she confronts. Her hair and makeup are always great, even when other characters tell her she looks awful and ask her what's wrong.

On the bright side, I didn't quite realize how little sense this story made until the end, so I enjoyed much of it. The sets are striking--a beautiful British estate and a post-modern home so large it looks almost like a condominium complex, both with bold decor choices. If nothing else, you may get some good ideas for your next couch.

A rating of seven seems fair. Maybe if it were a little shorter, I wouldn't be as annoyed that I spent so much time watching it.