colinrogers1

I'm really just here to comment on the deteriorating characters on this programme. Mainly Jack. He's gone from a focused tough lad from Belfast into some lounge lizard simpleton who can't do his job. The actor has been reduced to a one dimensional ham. This whole, and I mean whole, story arc of his romance with Nikki is ludicrous. A couple of hook ups I could understand but this marriage ? It's duff. The writers have clearly not listened to the audience and have pursued, one imagines to the end of the whole story of Silent Witness. Its stories have become more unreal. I'm glad they've got Maggie Steed in to usher it off into the mist ( one would hope) to put an end to the silly romance which makes one cringe like eating a slice of lemon. Jack's character is not a prowler or weirdo, yet he comes across as exactly this. Dreadful!

I can imagine the BBC llloking at the Christie canon and thinking what have we got left? Tommy and Tuppence Beresford fit the bill: younger, amateur, way out of their depths with mystery solving, sleuthing and espionage etc. Unlike Poirot or Marple, they fell into it through necessity to pay bills. Now the four books are fun, lightweight and boys own style of story. These adaptations are well produced, adapted and directed . Great cast bar David Walliams whose acting is pretty dreadful, amateur ironically. I've concluded he can only act in things he himself has written. The plot slows to a snails pace when his wet persona is on screen. Miss Marple has more dynamism than Tommy. I'm convinced they didn't make anymore because he was poor. Anyway, it's not totally his fault. The directing does encourage a sluggishness. Dragging the stories over multiple parts needlessly. Jessica Raine is well cast and is a good actress, so deals effortlessly with the script. The support actors are all solid and sharp. Needed a shake and bucket of cold water to get some energy into it. Walliams was the albatross sadly.

This has seriously been diluted to death for, one would assume, the the mass market called the USA. It's drivel compared to the original. I suppose I was spoiled by watching 'Day of the Jackal' staring Eddie Redmayne . Maybe I should have watched The Agency first ( two episodes only for balance) to ease me into a powerful, solid, well constructed series about agency and military infrastructure that 'Day of the Jackal' is. 'The Agency' ,on the other hand, is trite and obvious. They could make it into a dark comedy for all its cliches. It does so many nudges and winks to the audience that it sometimes becomes a Monty Python or SNL sketch. Joe Wright is a terrific director And Jes Butterworth a brilliant writer. I'm sure Paramount or Showtime leant hard on them to make some of this screenplay into instructional video style dialogue for the insular American audience. Such a shame. Good to see some big names in the series though. Especially after Richard Gere said he'd never do TV again after Mother/Father/Son.