The Stranger

I have tried . I really have. I tried with Safe; I tried with The Woods; and I really tried with all 10 episodes of this dreck. The only saving grace of this, as it was with Safe, was the cast. The story goes nowhere and takes for ev err to get there. So I must let you go and not see you or anything by you ever again. Furthermore , I must warn others not to make the same mistakes I've made with you, in hopes they won't fall, as I did, for the allure of an interesting trailer, showing a decent looking plot with at least one famous name in the cast. That decent looking plot will all but disappear by the end of episode three to be replaced by never-ending tangential plot lines that drop into the abyss, never to be resolved, no matter how banal or un-connected to the original story they may be. Don't make the mistake I did of waiting until the final episode to see if they can tie it all up because they can't and don't and frankly who cares by that point. But Harlem Corben, I'll not let you crush my dreams of a finding a great British detective series on Netflix. It just won't be yours. But mark me down as happy that Netflix is so delusionally proud of these that they emblazon the thumbnails with his name. So much easier to avoid them that way.

I enjoyed this show. After watching the first episode on a Friday night, I felt compelled to watch another three, and then the remaining episodes the following day.

Lots of twists, and some interesting characters kept me intrigued - I especially liked Hannah John-Kamen's portrayal of The Stranger.

Some things bothered me, though. Why do all of these people live literally in the same road, opposite each other, go to the same school, attend the same football club, etc. That seemed a little too 'convenient' for me. These, and some other coincidences (which you'll see) made things a bit detracting for me. This all culminated in an ending which was OK but, again, just a little too convenient.

Having said all of that, it was quite an entertaining eight episodes and I'd recommend giving it watch!

When I first started watching this, I quite enjoyed this series because of the mystery and the suspense. The storyline pace is a bit slow which leads to the bad last episode. Suddenly, so many things start happening: deaths etc. I will try not to have spoilers in this but it is like mixing different soups then adding to much salt. It is a good series but it needs a better ending.

This eight-part ITV mini-series based on a Harlan Coben novel provided three hours of breathless lockdown entertainment for my wife and I. With more twists and turns than a Pleasure Beach rollercoaster, you couldn't rest for a second before the next plot turn came around the corner.

Richard Armitage is the happily married solicitor whose life is turned upside down and inside out when a mysterious young woman reveals to him a dark secret of his wife, which eventually leads to their separation and even deeper consequences as matters progress. Turns out that this young woman has made a cottage industry unearthing skeletons from other prominent citizens resident in Armitage's seemingly blissfully happy village, but what at first seems to be a simple get-rich-quick ruse turns nasty when the local coffee-shop owner is murdered.

But of course that ain't all, not by a long-shot. Being a Coben adaptation, there are about a bazillion sub-plots raging and cross-cutting in the background, including a cantankerous retired cop who won't give up his old flat to a property developer, a teenage girl supplementing her income by selling sexual favours via an online sexting app, the narcissistic big-shot at her beck and call, an embezzlement scandal at the local boys football club, a soft-drug-fuelled silent rave held by the local teenagers which goes horrendously wrong for one young lad who ends up naked and near-death in hospital and as for the poor alpaca which becomes a ritual sacrifice at the party...

And there's even more, as Armitage's old rake of a father, who owns the property company trying to buy out the reluctant home-owner, also has a dark secret from his Casanova past and just to top it off, there's a crooked cop who'll do anything to finance the medical bills to find a cure for the mysterious illness his daughter is suffering.

I'm almost breathless just recounting all this. Anyway, while it's all completely bonkers and fantastical, somehow all the connections make a sort of crazy sense leading to a satisfying conclusion when the mystery of Armitage's wife's disappearance is finally solved.

With an interesting and varied cast including the likes of Jennifer Saunders, Paul Kaye and Steven Rea, the pace never flags as intrigue is piled on intrigue and one cliffhanging situation leads to another.

Dull, it certainly wasn't.

This eight part thriller opens Adam Price, a married father, is approached by a young woman who tells him that his wife Corrine's miscarriage two years previously had been faked... she was never pregnant. He has difficulty believing her but finds evidence to suggest she was telling the truth. Shortly afterwards Corrine vanishes; a text tells him that she needs time to think things over. There are also suggestions that she might have been involved in a theft from the local football club where she was the treasurer. If that weren't enough there is also a naked boy found drugged and comatose in the woods after a party and the severed head of an alpaca! The police enquiry is led DS Johanna Griffin.

This is an intriguing thriller with plenty of twists and turns; some are a little far-fetched but that didn't spoil my enjoyment of the series. There is a fine sense of mystery concerning the whereabouts of Corrine and the identity and motives of the mysterious stranger of the title. Some mysteries, such as the identity of the person who decapitated the alpaca are wrapped up pretty quickly but more emerge as the series progresses. The cast does a fine job; most obviously Richard Armitage as Adam Price and Siobhan Finneran as DS Griffin; there are also notable performances from Dervla Kirwan as Corrine; Paul Kaye as police officer Patrick Katz; Anthony Head as Adam's father, Edgar Price; and Stephen Rea as Martin Killane, an ex-police officer who is employing Adam as a lawyer and helps with his investigation into the stranger. The ending is a little disappointing but not excessively so. Overall I'd recommend this to fans of mystery dramas who like multiple interlinked character arcs and a few good twists.