Southcliffe

Very well done. Don't compare to everything else you have seen out there. More to come...

This tries to be different and in the process just ends up a confused mess.

Could have been a decent crime mini series had it been told in a traditional way, but the way the time lines chop and change just end up making the whole thing disjointed. I thought I was going a bit loopy at first when things from a previous scene were repeated were repeated, it took a while to cotton on that this was the way the story was being told.

In its favour it does have a real sense of grimness to it, but that's not enough to rescue it unfortunately.

The acting is of a high calibre for the most part throughout and cinematography is atmospheric.

However, it just doesn't gel.

The first part of this was shown last night, and directed with a steady hand and unravelling at its own pace, its clearly a drama that's not going to be rushed.

The writers have taken the real events of Hungerford, Cumbria and Dunblane as their inspiration here, showing the characters and the sparks that lead up to one man (Sean Harris, brilliantly haunting) snapping and begin his random killing spree in a small fictional town in the UK. The tones here match the bleak morning fog of this sleepy coastal community and the camera takes it's time, not always showing you everything you want to see, a statement perhaps that the film makers here are willing to take risks and its all the better for it. Clearly taking well grounded advice from shows such as 'The Killing' time is taken to show all sides of a person so there will be more emotional consequence for the viewer later on as the first episode ended with the spree just beginning, though we were given a taste of this already at the start.

It's style won't be to everyone's taste and I am sure some will find it a bit slow, but in a time of never ending crap reality TV and repetitive game shows, its about time someone showed some balls and made these sorts of gritty dramas that we used to be so good at. It gets my vote and I look forward to seeing more tonight.

Southcliffe, a sleepy English town suffers a major tragedy, innocent people are gunned down by Stephen Morton for no apparent reason, Journalist David Whitehead attempts to get to the bottom of why.

It's a bleak watch, don't expect any cheer or light hearted moments, this is a tough watch. Very solid from start to finish, for me the best episode is the first one, you learn so much from it.

It jumps around a little in terms of timeframe, so it does need a degree of concentration. Some very big characters, some you'll like, most you won't, the worst perhaps being Paul, who really is a monster.

Sean Harris leads initially before handing over to Rory Kinnear, the pair are terrific.

David keeps on saying they should have seen it coming, was he right? I think so.

Very good 8/10.

And then episode 4 happened. I got very confused. Claire was bonkers, I had not the first inkling what Chris was doing, nor the journalist dude, nor Chris's uncle. In fact the whole thing turned into a giant "Huh?" I couldn't quite grasp the reasoning behind any of their actions/behaviour. Nor did I really care as none of the characters were either likeable or relatable. A shame.