User Reviews

The main reason, in my opinion, for watching this British mini-series is the performance of the reliably-excellent Michael Kitchen (Foyle of "Foyle's War"), here playing against type as Steven Vey, a successful barrister and a man as arrogant as he is amoral. Though married, Vey has eyes for a young secretary in his office. She is sufficiently flattered by his flirting that the two end up one evening after work at her apartment. Sensing that she has allowed things to go too far, she tries to end their evening together, but Vey is not about to be rebuffed, and he proceeds to force himself on the young woman. Not long after this incident, Vey receives a coveted appointment to the bench. The young woman, wanting some sense of justice but believing that she would have little chance of getting it in court, contacts Vey with an offer: if he resigns his judgeship, she will remain quiet about what he did to her; if he does not, she will go public.

The stage is set for a promising drama, which makes what follows all the more disappointing. First, the story shifts from London to Birmingham and to a young, petty thief, Eddy Doyle. Doyle learns from his mother that the man he thought was his father is actually his adoptive father, that his biological father is a man by the name of... Steven Vey! Learning this, Doyle is off to London to try to locate Vey. In what follows, the story goes off the rails, at least it did for me, because of the coincidences the writers invoke to intersect the paths of Doyle and Vey and of Doyle and the young lady who was Vey's victim. If you are tolerant of these preposterous twists, then you may be impressed with this mini-series. I wasn't.

Michael Kitchen (Foyle's War), Caroline Katz (Doc Martin), Peter Blythe and Eleanor David (Rumpole of the Bailey) and Philip Whitchurch (My Hero) all stumbled into this overlong would be drama, and regardless of their excellent abilities, they are not sufficient to make up for a plot that literally makes mockery of coincidence. After winning a major case, Steven Vey "misunderstands" the clear signals coming from his new secretary and rapes her or maybe he doesn't, but he does attack her. Immediately afterwords he gets appointed to a judgeship and Nicky threatens to expose him if he doesn't resign. In the meantime his unknown son Eddy, a product of a brief liaison with his mother, discovers he was adopted and Vey is his real father. Eddy travels to London to find his real father and ends up getting hired by him to make Nicky "disappear." The problem is Vey is very sympathetic and you actually root for him; Nicky who is a sexual teaser sets herself up for "we really don't care what happens to her" because she is an idiot. However we do care about Eddy and what he will or won't do. And there is a nice plot twist tossed in regarding Vey's wife and his best friend. Only you can decide if this is worth four hours of your time, excellent acting aside.