This was a 5/10 for me. The series generally seemed poorly made - infantile, even. The characters were all too often one-dimensional, the script was banal, and the storyline veered all over the place. The plot seemed more & more dramatic the longer the series went on - and not in the right way. It became more overwrought & less in control, the more episodes appeared. Keyed up in a bad way. Which was a shame, as the basic plot - the premise of the tale - is very intriguing.
I HAD - at the end of the first episode - been very drawn to the basic plotline. At that point I had thought I might at the end be giving the drama a 7 or 8 out of 10, if it continued at the standard I was seeing. But by the third episode my rating had dropped to a sad 6. And thereafter down to a 5. Such a shame. Maybe I will have to get a copy of the book from which the drama was adapted, & try that instead . . . It's by a best-selling author. It's such a tragedy to see a novel badly represented on screen.
It didn't help that the lead - Ioan Gruffudd - had cast as his parents, two British stalwarts in the acting world that I already knew/guessed were only a few years older than Gruffudd: the two actors looked much the same age as their on-screen 'son'! It was peculiarly disconcerting to watch. (Silver hair does NOT an old face make!) When I checked the two actors' actual age at IMDb, I found I was right: the 'mother' is only 2 years older that her 'son'! And even the 'father' actor is only older than Gruffudd by 10 years. This lack of careful casting was irritating: their ages made the interaction between the three 'family members'/actors seem unbelievable; even grotesque.
It seemed lazy, on the part of the production team, to give these two specific actors these roles, when they looked more like their 'son's' sister and brother! When laziness in casting comes into play like this, it is fairly certain that indolence will run into other aspects of the production . . . Which it did.
The lack of continuity between the scenes smacked of amateurism. Disconnected scenes were confusing. 'Ta-da!' moments didn't ring true. Information was missing that was required by a new viewer - a fatal storytelling flaw for viewers who don't already know key details of the plot. There was little explanation as to the motivation, of several characters, for their actions. At times the series seemed to have been written by 14-year-olds (. . . No offence intended to 14-year-olds!).
High dramatic ploys - such as evil Russian gangsters - were suddenly brought in & with no subtlety. Over-lingering by the camera on players' faces often made the programme feel more like a soap opera than a carefully put together prime-time drama. Little nuance was deployed at any time. Nearly all of the characters were only thinly developed, if at all.
This was a case of good actors wasting their talent in a poorly put together production.
Not even some good combined factors and craft work - the presence of several good players, clever camera shots, great scenery, and the lead (Gruffudd) doing a super job with the material he had - could make me enjoy this poor production. :-(
I finally realised I wanted to end my association at the end of the fourth episode, but had in fact already nigh-on tuned out during the previous episode. So I had deduced all the shortcomings & over-exaggeration of the production by the end of episode 4. That's two-thirds of the whole story to make me realise that, sadly, this is one of the few miniseries I just didn't want (read: couldn't bear!) to waste any more of my time on . . .
Even for a series of just 6 episodes, it wasn't worth the hours I'd spend watching the programme to the end.
But . . . I chose to persist in watching all of the 6 episodes. I just felt I had to commit to it, come what may. But, that being said, watching the last 2 episodes took me a hiatus of, first, a month, till I watched episode 5, then another month till I watched the last episode. That is, I had to stop watching the series for weeks, because dragging myself through each episode quite literally felt like my teeth were being pulled.
The only relief, after that last 4-week holiday, was finding that so much was explained in the last episode. This meant that the over-stylised melodramatic approach to the drama was almost lost amidst all the bare facts of the story. What joy! ,-)
So at least the solution of getting to the all-important final facts of the story - who did it, what exactly, & why?! - was relatively painless to live through.
But the overall sensation I got from the series was an inflated sense of self-worth by the production team. A preposterous style ruining a good story. An overwrought drama does not result in a GOOD TV drama. And this was several hours of my life I would like to have back!
The essence of the story - a team of friends, a conjoined educational setting in their past, secrets and lies, and its retro-leaning plot - reminded me rather of an excellent novel I read years ago: 'The Secret History' by Donna Tartt. What a shame someone hasn't set THAT in celluloid, yet! . . . Pass it on, someone . . . !
