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10/10
Intense and smart
16 October 2023
This could have been six episodes given the depths of the real story, but it was brilliant to keep it to four and make it economical by focusing on the sick psychology of the perpetrator. For example, the show doesn't get into his real-life side job as a paid prostitute, but the scenes of him taking shirtless selfies hints that he's the type who would be on the game. We don't get the deeper history of his relationship with his toady Martyn but in a brief scene of public humiliation we get the psychology of it.

The script gives the audience enough credit by not "revealing" Ben's evil fakery as a suprise. The romantic situation he engineers with lonely old Peter is so suspect that we know he's bad before we ever see him behave other than perfectly kind and gentle. When he does start behaving like an egotistical jerk it's not meant to be jarring, and it isn't, but it's deeply creepy because we don't know how far it will go.
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3/10
Where are we?
30 January 2023
I thought this was a Canadian movie since it has at least three Canadian actors, including the late, great Kenneth Welsh, but then there's a Sheriff and American flags, so evidently we're in the US, but then the credits have separate listings for crews in Germany, Denmark and Norway - it's baffling that this deliberately claustrophobic movie that all takes place in one small American town was shot in three European countries. The characterizations feel just as displaced, the relationships between characters are more muddled than complex, and the protagonist's arc isn't believable. It starts out engaging but I was disappointed.
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10/10
Tense and funny
28 August 2022
Sensational performances by Dolan and Marsan almost have us rooting for John Darwin's ridiculous, ill-thought-out scheme. Anne's reluctance to back out is sympathetic given her husband's relentless manipulation and emotional cruelty. Marsan gives us tiny glimpses of the buried damage that make John behave as horribly as he does out of nothing but shame avoidance (torturing his family is better than facing bankruptcy). A lot of the laughs come from disbelief at the sheer nerve of his lies and deflections. The chain of events is a suspenseful farce, constantly skirting a cliff edge as Darwin is forced to improvise; in his arrogance he hasn't worked out all the possible pitfalls, instead distracting himself with secret gratifications. I enjoyed this as a fictionalized account and didn't concern myself with the real-life Darwins' motivations or personalities, but I'm a bit interested in reading Anne's book now.
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Redemption (I) (2022)
7/10
Plot holes
25 June 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Colette gets a call from the authorities that a woman has died, realizes it's her long-estranged daughter, travels from Liverpool to Dublin, eventually goes into her daughter's house and THEN the kids casually come home not knowing at all that their mother was missing from their home all night or that she's dead.

The whole thing of not handing the bag of stolen drugs and cash to the organized crime squad is fairly contrived with the only reason being to protect the children from the possibility that their mother was a criminal, or something.

Somehow the fact that Colette withheld this evidence (kept it in the house and the car!) and the fact that her partner's fingerprints would be on it are glossed over or forgiven.

Colette gets a call at 8:30 PM to meet the baddie "in 40 minutes" where they have a confrontation, then after sunrise at the same location we see him being loaded into an ambulance and her granddaughter being treated in another ambulance. So about eight hours elapsed between the confrontation and taking him away in the ambulance? What were they doing hanging around there all that time?

7 for the performances, pacing, and otherwise OK plot but it's a little beyond belief.
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The Bay (2019– )
4/10
Season 3 Good performances, messy plot
4 April 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Calling this season "woke" is being silly. I'm not interested in religion and tradition but I liked the cultural complexity, such as how the criminal sister, Shazia, is more "religious" than the other, Mariam (the victim's mother).

To Shazia's horror, Mariam gets drunk and ends the traditional post-death gathering in her home by screaming at all the mourners to leave. There's more culture clash when Shazia tells Mariam's non-Muslim partner that he can't accompany her and her husband to a community event, because she can't explain who he is to people.

That partner is played by Vincent Regan, underused here and not until a scene near the end revealed as enabling Mariam's alcoholism. He apparently is also an alcoholic. There is no foreshadowing of this (that I noticed) leaving Regan's character as little more than a nice guy.

The plot seemed more messy and crowded than previous seasons. There are too many snags that don't go anywhere (e.g. The steroid trafficking), and do we really care about DI Manning going to his son's graduation?

Four out of ten to give some credit to the core cast, who range from okay to excellent. Marsha Thomason and Erin Shanagher are great. The kid actors have a lot to do here and they pull it off with nuance and believability. The 25 year-old actor playing Jamal is miscast as a 17-18 year-old, given he could pass for 30+.
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Doc Martin (2004–2022)
3/10
Fairly tiresome and improbable
6 May 2021
I know comedy doesn't have to be realistic, but the Portwenn village idiots far outnumber the normals and are more irritating than they are funny or endearing. Louisa's love for emotionally stunted Martin is wildly unbelievable and props to poor Catz for giving it sincerity against all reason. The Doc himself is only sympathetic in that we feel sorry for the abuse he suffers from his brainless patients and in early episodes a scary gang of mean girls who laugh at him for no reason (which elicits zero laughs from us). My eyes wander to the huge houses on the hillsides in the background and I assume this village is actually extremely gentrified, but the moneyed inhabitants probably have private physicians and only visit their seaside getaways on weekends and holidays, so they are not among the droolers who darken Doc's door.
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Inspector George Gently (2007–2017)
9/10
Re-appreciating
24 April 2021
I've started rewatching this on a streaming service and am impressed again by the acting, casting, stories and the gorgeously scruffy, grim cinematography. Lee Ingleby is masterful, but Bacchus as a character is a bit too odious sometimes, and they way women are attacted to him rather than repulsed is not credible.
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9/10
Great ending, no need to continue.
1 November 2020
Warning: Spoilers
The kids ruin their lives, so they must put Mum firmly back in her place for their own comfort and safety. At Mum's house, they can pretend they aren't jerks who've made a mess of things. Mum paints over their flaws with undeserved tributes on her birthday. They love it.

The veteran cop can't not trust sweet Mary's face when she tells him the complete truth: "I did everything I could." Meaning she tried her best to murder Mark before the ambulance showed.

The kids may have saved their mother's life, but there's an equal chance all they've done is shrunk it down to nothing. While the family enjoy that dark celebratory lunch, Mark opens his eyes. Whether he lives or not, it's just to remind us that chaos won't be kept down.
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Unforgotten (2015– )
9/10
Excellent, video looks artificial at times
27 April 2019
Wonderfully written and acted characterizations in absorbing, layered plots. I'm a bit distracted and put off by the "soap opera effect" of the latest season's production and wish the frame rate had been adjusted to more resemble film than digital video. I didn't notice this with the first series.
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10/10
Extremely funny
15 January 2019
This perfectly cast mock-doc never sags in its wit and forward momentum. I laughed all the way through and I believe it is one of my all-time favourite comedies.
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10/10
Charming and truly funny
29 June 2018
Quite a surprising gem, frequently makes me laugh out loud. Terrific cast and snappy writing. Watching it on BBC Canada I suspect it's chopped down for commercials-I'll have to keep an eye out for an uncut source.
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Startup.com (2001)
1/10
Wait a minute...
27 May 2018
I saw this shortly after it came out. For at least the first half hour I honestly thought it was a comic satire mockumentary of a fictional doomed startup. It was so inane and random. Then I had the stunning realization that it was real. And not very good.
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