Paula

Everything is falling apart in Paula's life. She is having an affair with a married teacher colleague, and now her headmaster has found out about it. Her younger brother is having serious problems (drugs, alcohol?) and is living in a garage. Moreover she has discovered rats in her basement, and when she hires a handyman to take care of the problem, he turns out to be a psychopath. No wonder Paula has to swallow a lot of pills to avoid a breakdown.

This is the outline of the brilliant thriller TV-series "Paula" from BBC, which is a movement away from "tedious realism" towards an embracement of the supernatural and elements from old horror movies such as haunting ghosts, rats in basement of your house, and children locked up in a cupboard. It's all really a bit over the top, but I love it. The acting is very convincing. Paula i played by one of the upcoming actresses in British film, Denise Gough and the sexy but dangerous handy man, which Paula hires to fix the basement of her house, is played by Tom Hughes.

This looked like it would be something special with twists and turns in abundance but it flat-lined in grand style. Even though the source of evil seemed obvious and the past was about to be explained. It just didn't happen and became more and more ridiculous. I understand that TV audiences are not all fortunate enough to apply logic and notice obvious faults in relation to how events are depicted and how they would happen in the real world. The holes in this grew larger than the potholes down the end of my road and fact became fiction in virtually every scene. I would list them but there were too many. Potential turned into farcical and suspense turned into the damn right ridiculous. Did they change writers and directors half way through? In the end I had to keep checking that there was only 3 episodes as there was only 5 minutes left and the end made the whole series look like a broken pencil, no point. So much potential ruined. Better luck next time.

Just about life driving people psycho. Nothing new or interesting not sure why it was made really.

The best thing about this Irish-set drama are its strong characters, notably the heroine, a confident but normal young woman whose life is undermined after making an unfortunate sexual acquaintance. It's relative weakness is its plot, which fails to operate on the principle that "less is more"; instead, the menacing premise set up in the first episode is not so much built upon, but almost discarded in favour of new, unnecessary elements, and the ultimate conclusion doesn't ring true. It's a shame, as the cast all do a good job; with a little more restraint, this could have been really good.

The characters created for this series are the most cringe worth group created in a very, very long time. Normally you can find one sympathetic character in a show, but in this case everyone is totally dislikable. The other major problem is the inconsistent unfolding of the plot due to very poor script writing: one major event in the first episode just simply dies/disappears in the second and third episode; given the seriousness of this event this is an extraordinary problem for consistency in the program - in fact, I literally yelled "That's ridiculous!" at my tv screen midway through the second episode. I did watch all three episodes, but regret doing so. This show really gives credence to the need for a zero star rating.