User Reviews

Where is Sian O'Callaghan? A young girl disappears, nobody can understand where she is, the assumption is that someone has her.

Based on a tragic real life crime, as I review, I will base my review on the drama production, as opposed to the tragic case and real life impacts on those involved.

A terrific cast assembled, led by Martin Freeman, supported by the likes of Siobhan Finneran and Imelda Staunton.

The acting is great, the storytelling is good, fortunately it feels as if it hasn't been over dramatised. Purely from the point of view of a production, the camera work is shocking, it's distracting to watch, shaky, with constant zooming in and out, was it done by someone for a GCSE project?

It's a solid start.

Writer Jeff Pope seems to be specialising in true crime dramas. A Confession will morph into a discussion on police ethics.

The first episode has a drama documentary look to give it a raw naturalistic feel. It is about the disappearance of 22 year-old Sian O'Callaghan who failed to come home after a night out. Her boyfriend reported her missing and her family are worried leading to a police search.

I did wonder whether the first scenes with DI Steve Fulcher (Martin Freeman) and Deputy Chief Constable Ray Hayward (John Thomson) had any relevance to the story. Hayward is complaining about the accusations he is facing of sexual harassment and Fulcher telling him that these are different times. I guess it would be used to highlight Fulcher's unhappiness with the system that stigmatises good coppers.

The story of Sian's disappearance runs parallel with another family's plight. Karen Edwards has been looking for her grown up daughter Becky Godden who has been missing for some years. Karen hopes one day she will return but she still goes out searching for her. The two stories will collide.

Until then Fulcher conducts this missing person's case with quiet authority searching through CCTV, talking to her boyfriend. Sian could suddenly turn up or something worse has happened. When members of public turn up to help, he orders that they are roped in to conduct a through search in the countryside.

Th episode eschews sensationalism in the first episode, all the main actors downplay their roles. When Sian's mother talks about doing a press conference, she replies that they have to be that terrified family for the cameras, "Maybe one of us will cry."