STAR RATING: ***** Brilliant **** Very Good *** Okay ** Poor * Awful
When Sarah Sak's (Sheridan Smith) son goes missing and is then found dead, she is determined to find justice for him, but is met with a wall of indifference and inactivity by the police, and begins to think his sexuality may have played a part in this. When the bodies of several other young gay men are found in a similar fashion, it becomes clear that a serial killer is at large, and further pressure is put on the police to get to the bottom of it, before Stephen Port (Stephen Merchant) is tried and convicted of the crimes.
This dark four part serial drama from director David Blair arrives hot on the heels of the real life conviction of Stephen Port for the 'Grindr' killings, where he used a fake profile to entice young, vulnerable men who were reluctant to completely open up about their sexuality to those around them, before 'playing God' with them. The case attracted some unsavoury publicity in itself for the way the case was handled, and whether lives could have been saved if things had been done differently. This freshness from the original events could have provided an inspiring springboard in itself to really make the most of it, but somehow this whole dramatisation never really rises to the surface.
All the right ingredients are there, from the cast to what seems to be a fairly authentic reconstruction of the true life backgrounds of the victims . Blair fittingly (and respectfully, given the true life nature of the story) keeps the tone dark and dull, with a minimum of humour and light. Somehow, it all just feels undercooked and underdeveloped, never really galvanising us in to the thrust of the story or getting us to care about the characters as much as it should. Even lead star Smith, usually so strong and capable in real life roles like this, is strangely bland and unremarkable while Merchant, a surprising choice given his comedy background, looks unnerving enough as Port, but never really gets under the skin of the character.
Maybe it came out too soon after the real life conviction, with too much hot air floating around in the aftermath, or maybe not. While it's not a total failure, it sadly very much fails to be the sum of its parts. ***
When Sarah Sak's (Sheridan Smith) son goes missing and is then found dead, she is determined to find justice for him, but is met with a wall of indifference and inactivity by the police, and begins to think his sexuality may have played a part in this. When the bodies of several other young gay men are found in a similar fashion, it becomes clear that a serial killer is at large, and further pressure is put on the police to get to the bottom of it, before Stephen Port (Stephen Merchant) is tried and convicted of the crimes.
This dark four part serial drama from director David Blair arrives hot on the heels of the real life conviction of Stephen Port for the 'Grindr' killings, where he used a fake profile to entice young, vulnerable men who were reluctant to completely open up about their sexuality to those around them, before 'playing God' with them. The case attracted some unsavoury publicity in itself for the way the case was handled, and whether lives could have been saved if things had been done differently. This freshness from the original events could have provided an inspiring springboard in itself to really make the most of it, but somehow this whole dramatisation never really rises to the surface.
All the right ingredients are there, from the cast to what seems to be a fairly authentic reconstruction of the true life backgrounds of the victims . Blair fittingly (and respectfully, given the true life nature of the story) keeps the tone dark and dull, with a minimum of humour and light. Somehow, it all just feels undercooked and underdeveloped, never really galvanising us in to the thrust of the story or getting us to care about the characters as much as it should. Even lead star Smith, usually so strong and capable in real life roles like this, is strangely bland and unremarkable while Merchant, a surprising choice given his comedy background, looks unnerving enough as Port, but never really gets under the skin of the character.
Maybe it came out too soon after the real life conviction, with too much hot air floating around in the aftermath, or maybe not. While it's not a total failure, it sadly very much fails to be the sum of its parts. ***