doctor-how

...you will still be disappointed.

I went in to this with absolutely no expectations as I had herd little to nothing about it. As such I was happy to take a punt on an unknown quantity and see how it went. It takes about 30 seconds into the arduous almost 2 hour runtime for the cliches to start landing thick and fast. Naive country girl goes to the big bad city and is immediately a "fish out of water".

Before we put the boot in there's some good things here, a decent budget allowed the filmmakers put together some good visuals and a strong evocation of London in the swinging sixties. However they then refuse to stop beating you over the head with the "sixties-ness" of the setting.

Sadly that's where the good stuff ends as we are then presented with two-dimensional paper-thin characters, thinly veiled social commentary and a tedious build up to a laughable ending. The cast do their best with the material but even they must have been aware of how turgid this was going to be in the final cut.

This is a film that could be vastly improved with a radical director's cut that removed at least 40 minutes of running time.

Avoid. You won't get those two hours of your life back!

It really does need to be said, for people coming to the series for the first time - please watch season one only!

Season 1 is an intelligent, unsettling and compelling short series that is worthy of the talents of one of the finest actors currently working. Elisabeth Moss immerses herself in her role as a Kiwi cop returning to her home town from Australia to investigate a child's disappearance. Over the course of the investigation we get to learn more about her past and the demons that haunt her. A great supporting cast, outstanding performance from Moss and the wonderful locations in New Zealand make this a very strong drama.

Season 2 returns Moss' character, Robin Griffin, to Sydney and a new story. But from the very start we have what feels like a completely different and very amateur writing / directing team. From the stilted unnatural dialogue to the bizarre behaviour of the lead characters, total lack of pacing and excess of "filler" scenes this is a complete mess. To be fair, Moss shows her true talent by making her character still plausible despite the erratic plot and dialog lines being thrown at her but really she's wasted here.

Final advice, watch the first series and pretend that there isn't a second.

This could have been solid little indie movie that punched well above it's weight but it is let down by some serious plot holes and simplistic writing. What is good though is the performance from Sarah Bolger, the cinematography and the sound design.

Not a bad way to spend an hour and a half but sadly flawed enough to make it good rather than very good.