stusby
Joined Mar 2017
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Reviews24
stusby's rating
The McCullough murders of Great Baddow is a highly unusual case; a double parricide, committed by a woman, who did not dispose of the bodies, living with those remains for several years.
This show reduces this extraordinary case to rent-a-quotes from talking heads with no connection to the case and generic opinions to fill an hour. Even taken to guessing what the investigators might have done to check these two missing persons cases.
No-one from the family nor investigation team was on this programme There's no personal background of this complex killer.
No explanation why there are no family visits for years, nor why there appeared to be so little interest from the four other siblings.
Disrespectful cash-in that shows ITV productions in the worst light.
This show reduces this extraordinary case to rent-a-quotes from talking heads with no connection to the case and generic opinions to fill an hour. Even taken to guessing what the investigators might have done to check these two missing persons cases.
No-one from the family nor investigation team was on this programme There's no personal background of this complex killer.
No explanation why there are no family visits for years, nor why there appeared to be so little interest from the four other siblings.
Disrespectful cash-in that shows ITV productions in the worst light.
Excellent source material ruined by intrusive music drowning out a very poor choice of experts.
Repeatedly repackaged, this blaring slog is extremely disrespectful of it's source material.
Almost Solved, Finally Caught, Imperfect Murder, whatever it is called next it could be an teaching tool to media students how completely undermine a compelling case.
This series is bizarre example of low-budget over-production that does not trust it's source material to drive the narrative but instead chooses seemingly irrelevant talking heads to make barely audible generalisations to limp reconstructions.
Repeatedly repackaged, this blaring slog is extremely disrespectful of it's source material.
Almost Solved, Finally Caught, Imperfect Murder, whatever it is called next it could be an teaching tool to media students how completely undermine a compelling case.
This series is bizarre example of low-budget over-production that does not trust it's source material to drive the narrative but instead chooses seemingly irrelevant talking heads to make barely audible generalisations to limp reconstructions.
I'm writing this having revisited this show to watch it's opening double episode of it's third season, The Star Of The Orient.
Nothing has improved. Not the direction, the writing nor the acting. This episode shows all this clichéd, witless programmes' weaknesses.
The writing is flaccid. When even train staff have to rely on passengers to identify a problem with the train, it's a red flag the writers have decided its audience are idiots. The writers have Sister Boniface's parents ask her to travel by train during "the worst Winter on record" to cook for them just to set a murder on a train. Throughout this dragging story the writing matches the drudgery of this stale series.
Worse than the clunky writing is the plodding direction which hopefully explains the limp, stagey acting. Imagine a troupe of volunteers told to put on a show and you get a sense of how awful the character portrayals really are, like talentless hacks desperate to get attention. Quite why any professional actor would want to get noticed in this drearily gruelling dross I've no idea.
The production standards are often too lame to be laughable, like they trained on the comedy Acorn Antiques but never got the joke.
For example, the reason you hear the footsteps so loudly is because there aren't even the production standards to lay carpet to damp down the noise of moving around the set. Almost every scene is cluttered by needless noise or no relevant background noise. Which certainly explains the half-baked recreation of the worst Winter on record. Apart from verbal references and some snow-spray there's no suggestion of the extreme weather.
Who thought these team had the talent to even try?
Nothing has improved. Not the direction, the writing nor the acting. This episode shows all this clichéd, witless programmes' weaknesses.
The writing is flaccid. When even train staff have to rely on passengers to identify a problem with the train, it's a red flag the writers have decided its audience are idiots. The writers have Sister Boniface's parents ask her to travel by train during "the worst Winter on record" to cook for them just to set a murder on a train. Throughout this dragging story the writing matches the drudgery of this stale series.
Worse than the clunky writing is the plodding direction which hopefully explains the limp, stagey acting. Imagine a troupe of volunteers told to put on a show and you get a sense of how awful the character portrayals really are, like talentless hacks desperate to get attention. Quite why any professional actor would want to get noticed in this drearily gruelling dross I've no idea.
The production standards are often too lame to be laughable, like they trained on the comedy Acorn Antiques but never got the joke.
For example, the reason you hear the footsteps so loudly is because there aren't even the production standards to lay carpet to damp down the noise of moving around the set. Almost every scene is cluttered by needless noise or no relevant background noise. Which certainly explains the half-baked recreation of the worst Winter on record. Apart from verbal references and some snow-spray there's no suggestion of the extreme weather.
Who thought these team had the talent to even try?