Insomnia

It's a bit of an odd one. It portrays itself as some sort of spooky, supernatural mystery... but then just pivots into family drama and suburban horror.

And I found the family drama and suburban horror interesting and with some nice twists - but not too many to be silly - and I ended up watching all the episodes in one day.

The strangest thing is they almost seemed to forget where the story started and had a bit of a rush at the end to try and then return to that narrative. And I can't say they did it that well.

Those wanting more spooky goings on will be disappointed. It did feel a bit of a bait and switch and that's going to upset some viewers.

But as I said, I really enjoyed it. The cast was good too, and it was nice to see a different range to the lead actress from her time in Line of Duty.

Lucky Vicky McClure! As we join her in this 6-part Paramount psychological drama with vaguely supernatural overtones. She may be closing in on her 40th birthday but her Emma is now a successful lawyer and about to become partner in a big firm, lives in a big detached house in the country and is happily married to her dependable, easygoing husband and bringing up their two kids, an 18 year-old daughter and primary school-age son.

But her luck changes spectacularly when her free-spirited younger sister Phoebe, played by Leanne Best, re-enters her life to tell her their mother is dying in hospital. Mum has suffered for years from mental illness and was separated from her two daughters when they were very young. Seriously troubled, she's prone to writing out a series of seemingly random numbers and sleepwalking like an entranced Lady Macbeth. This culminates in a particular episode when she was stopped in the act of suffocating her youngest in her sleep until the infant Emma stopped her just in time.

As she's put into an institution, the mother tells Emma that she too has her "bad blood" and that it will out in time. Meanwhile, the two young girls are brought up in a care home where Emma too starts to write out the same numbers on the dormitory walls. There's a strange incident where it seems that the young Phoebe tries to drown her which leads to Emma being placed with another couple who have a daughter of their own...

Back in the present day, Emma now finds she's sleepwalking throughout and has returned to her numbers fixation at work. Just for good measure, her daughter Chloe is taking drugs and having her first serious affair and the young son is starting to withdraw into himself, exhibiting mood-swings and is obsessively filling his exercise book with drawings of a "bad lady". Distracted, Emma accidentally knocks down a nurse at the hospital where her mum's being kept. Then her mum dies under suspicious circumstances and everything really kicks off from there.

Wildly over the top in construction and conception, you have to suspend disbelief in this crazy drama and try not to think of "Fatal Attraction" or "Single White Female" as you go. The last episode in particular throws every clichéd situation into the pot, including that one where the heroine races back to her family home to save her family having notified the police, who of course finally turn up an eternity after she does and long after all the climactic action has played out and the big reveals going all the way back in time are made, requiring the viewer to accept plot-jumps and coincidences bigger than a fleet of buses before it calms down at the very end...or does it?

McClure leads the cast through this silly stuff and nonsense where to my mind they all do a great job keeping their faces straight as they engage with every implausible plot-point thrown in front of them. I particularly commend McClure and Best for accomplishing this task as they explain the significance of the numbers to the viewers. It was all I could do to do the same but in the end, I decided to stop nitpicking and just surrender myself to the sheer daftness of it all.

An entertaining mystery thriller with good performances by the cast At the end of the 1st episode I was wondering how the story could take 6 episodes to tell, but the melodrama kept ramping up in interesting ways It does get a bit far fetched by the end but it's aware enough of it's narrative excesses to deal with them in an interesting and intelligent way. The various threads are all tied up even if the characters themselves can't explain what actually happened and that's perfectly ok.

I'm hoping they don't makexa sequel as I think that would be a step too far but I'd recommend watching this.

I was looking forward to this as I'm a big fan of Vicki McClure, but honestly even an actor of her calibre couldn't stop this from sliding into one woeful mess. At first the story seems compelling enough, but after a few episodes the characters start to behave in ways that will have you shouting at your television. The respective sub-plots featuring the teenage daughter's dodgy relationship and the sister's fertility struggles add nothing to the story except to provide the characters with further opportunities to demonstrate poor judgement and engage in cringeworthy conversations where everyone talks in circles. The second to last episode enters the realms of hackneyed, scorned stalker out for revenge who does a bunch of silly things that are completely ludicrous and overblown and ohhhh my, the kid's behaviour in the final scene... I was hoping a meteorite would land on the house and put everyone out their misery. Is it a revenge thriller? Is it a supernatural thriller? Is it a social commentary about adults who try to be their kids' besties instead of parenting? Or a piece about overly ambitious middle class professionals handcuffed by mortgages on gigantic houses in the countryside, burdened by their past relationships with creepy family members? Who knows? Please don't do it again, Vicky, you're so much better than this.

Insomnia had me hooked from the first episode. I love UK shows and this mystery with a twist had me craving more with each passing minute. As a writer I think I have pretty much worked out where it is going, and had done so by the end of the first episode, but I might be completely wrong. Vicky McClure as Emma Averill is brilliant! My only criticism would be that she doesn't 'really' try to fall asleep before getting out of bed. I have had bouts of insomnia for weeks that have had me in the ER, so I get it. This show is dark, creepy, and brilliant. You can feel that there is something just not right under the surface and you have to figure out what exactly is going on, but it's not as simple as Emma going mad. Definitely give it a shot you will not be disappointed.