RyothChatty
ridiculous rating
Supelice
Dreadfully Boring
StyleSk8r
At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.
Philippa
All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
John Brown
Yet again the Beeb has managed to produce a whacking great turkey. This is one massive bore from start to finish, full of supposedly meaningful looks and camera work, portentous noise (it can't be called music) and pretty well nothing else. The plot, such as it is, meanders around to little purpose, while the characters are caricatures and demand little attention and less interest. Each episode seems to be longer than the previous one, and the last seems to go on, and on, and on, like a bad bout of 'flu. As for the ending, when it finally arrives it's a blessing, even if it is horribly drawn out and utterly idiotic.As is so often the case, it's frequently difficult to tell who is who, so bland are the personalities, and the acting in general is as wooden as can be. It's full of angst and everyone has 'issues'; what it doesn't have is any significant amount of detective work or suspense. It's rubbish, and the sooner I hear that it's been consigned to the dustbin of history, the better.
robertoakley
This series was set to knock Downton off the top spot. Unfortunately, a disjointed plot that may as well have been 4 separate unconnected hour long vignettes. The ridiculous scene where they go to the suspects house and terrorise their family, coupled with the female moriarty type figure who goes from victim to world class counter-surveillance operative was stretching the plot to its limits.Where did the fat beardy bloke who perpetrated the actual crime come from at the end? All over the place like a mad woman's proverbial. Failed to deliver on what was shaping up to be a brilliant series in the beginning. The ending was even worse. Anne-Marie Duff's character was supposed to be a damaged police officer, but the way that she was allowed to run amok in an investigation when clearly unstable was bonkers. This series made me sad, sad I tell you!
blakedw
Some of the criticisms of this series are unfair. For example, people complain about the long silences. Yet these actually provide a blessed relief from the dialogue, much of which can only explained as a Google translation of the original Gaelic. The start makes no effort to convince us there is anything realistic about to happen. Two bodies dead for many years are found in Manchester. The police inspector in charge immediately disappears to an island in Scotland, taking his sergeant with him. No careful buildup of the investigation here. The Scottish trip is to see his former colleague and lover, who worked on similar cases. She understandably refuses to go back with Jim, so we have a knockabout scene in which he threatens to arrest her. She goes, says her piece and goes back to Scotland. I'm a bit hazy after that, though we get more recent killings and maybe a new killer. There seems to be another fat bloke with a beard as well as the policeman. Somewhere without me noticing the inspector gets taken off the case because of some complaint. But he sticks with it. One review says that the female lead had to be persuaded to do it the show because she had "semi-retired" from acting. The word semi should be removed from that description as far as this fiasco goes. One review suggests that the ending may be designed to open the way to a second series. But surely nobody, NOBODY, could be so deluded as to think we could subjected to more of this nonsense. The big mystery here is how this came to be shown at all. Why didn't a BBC executive have the courage to say "This is such rubbish we can't show it. Just throw it away." But courage is not a big thing in the BBC nowadays.
Jmacleish
Are you looking for a tight, tense detective drama set in the bleaker parts of a rainy UK city?? Then go watch Luther! Actually, go watch anything but this... From Darkness is awful.They've obviously gone for a ponderous intense Scandinavian thing that every Detective drama seems to try for these days. A bit generic, but not necessarily a criticism. Unfortunately, FD appears to have been scripted by morons. People don't talk to each other like that, ever. The plot is mostly rubbish too.I was bored after 20 mins, but dragged myself through the first 2 episodes. It got very very very slightly better but I still don't care about any of the characters, or the plot, or anything in the series - although the scenery is very pretty (Scotland - not Manchester!). A shame as Duff and Harris are terrific actors in everything else and this is a waste of their talent and time, but watching and even reviewing is waste of my time to be honest. There's a shedload of decent police dramas out there so go find something else, if you can - try Luther it's very good... Exactly the same way this isn't.Well you've been warned, I'm about all done here. Run along now, off you pop......