Second Sight

Another Great UK Crime Drama . . . With a twist. A very interesting twist!

A young Clive Owens plays has DCI Ross Tanner, a cop who discovers that he going blind. Add to that a nasty murder case and a new DI as his deputy . . .

. . . A good basis for a story. Clive Owen makes it work so well, Claire Skinner manages to keep up and the always dependable Stuart Wilson (and his Crossworlds hat) is excellent as usual. The music harkens back to the 50s, 60s, 70s detective shows of my youth and almost makes it feel like a period piece.

I love British crime shows (Midsomer Murders, The Last Detective, Endeavour, etc.). I'm slotting this one into the rotation!

My TV watching is confined almost exclusively to PBS and the British shows, which are usually the only things on TV worth watching. BUT... this particular show suffers from an excess of unintelligible dialogue that only added to the confusion of the muddled plot and story, the jerky handheld camera work, the appallingly choppy editing and uncertain direction. May I suggest to Rebecca Eaton that she add sub-titles to this show (which still has a few episodes to run) so that American viewers can truly enjoy rather than endure the British dialects and poor diction of the performers.

This was supposedly a 2-part pilot yet there's no series. Because someone tanked it, apparently. Good call. The phrase Second Sight is widely known to refer to ESP or psychic ability yet more than half way through, there's still no indication he's having visions; in fact, so far, he's just doing the same thing over and over - drinking, sulking, having tantrums - with some detective work sprinkled in. If you want to feel like you might be watching Groundhog Day with the entertainment value removed, this is your show.

So I've started seeing Clive Owen here and there the last few months and I look him up to see what other work he's done. I end up searching for this set of TV episodes and Greenfingers. Both are movies I couldn't find in my neighborhood movie rental spot. Anyway, I loved this show. All eight episodes kept me interested, though I was disappointed with the Tully just suddenly moving along aspect, and Clive rules the small screen just as well as he does the big screen. I highly suggest anyone that enjoys Clive's work pick these up, especially the 1st two dvds (2 parts to each one). Oh, and some great cameo's but well known actors as well. Overall, an A- for the set.

I watched this on Prime (with subtitles) but spent most of my time forwarding it by 10 seconds at a time. I didn't even last 10 minutes with it. Why? Refer to the title of the review.