Fluentiama Perfect cast and a good story

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

elanorblue Such a compelling story. It's been a long time since I have seen something so original. From beginning to end was a complete surprise. Colin Morgan's performance was one of his best. This story was told so well and so completely.

robertemerald I've only seen two episodes, so count me out if you are needing an end run at this series.What I did see is safe horror for romantics. It's not for me, I'm not a romantic, but even so I didn't mind watching it (normally I would) so critically it is working on levels apart from that romanticism. This is not Thomas Hardy, whom treads a line where the central characters are flawed rather than the supporting cast. Here it is the reverse if anything, and in fact any flaws are more the aberrations that tragedy brings. It's the type of horror that sets one weeping for the sadness of it all, and as a period piece I think is authentic for that. This is not a jump out of your seat horror, though it has creepy moments galore. This is a new vision of the age of Thomas Hardy, and if you enter into that spirit, you should come away satisfied. As with all BBC the visage is perfect, the shot framing wonderful, the little touches touching or appropriate or interesting, and overall the concept is reasonably novel. This is like old horror tales you remember having read somewhere, such as ones from anthologies, written well before our time. For me it was too romantic … a sort of we live next door to Wuthering Heights in the summer.The lighting was good, the details and costume very authentic, the characters engaging. The pace was good for television, but a little too fast for me. I would preferred it slower with resolution waiting for another episode, as some of the sub-plot lines require. There is the promise of a deeper mystery here, and rest assured I will be one of the ones that comes back to the show from time to time to ultimately discover what that mystery is.

vivnista I found the show incredibly disjointed. I was more than happy with the time periods which definitely held my interest but the story lines just did not fit together well. It was all a bit thin for my liking. I did find the acting brilliant and the soundtrack was appropriately eerie but it just wasn't enough. I didn't understand the ending at all, were they on about the first wife and if so how come nobody else had mentioned it?!!! The twist was good but again didn't make sense as in the present day there would be mention of this strange machine found back in the 1800s. All in all if you have nothing better to do then give it a go with low expectation and then you may enjoy it.

rallen-34923 If you like the supernatural and Victorian gear you will very possibly love this series, but corsets, oil lamps and spooky goings-on leave me cold. I was surprised to see that the co-creator of the brilliant Life on Mars was the guiding spirit behind this series. LoM was witty, thoughtful, satirical and sometimes laugh out loud funny, in a good way; but in the present series the ideas, and humour, are thin on the ground. Perhaps the writers reckoned that if they encouraged thought or laughter in their viewers, we might not take their absurd plot lines seriously enough. The props and frocks department have done their stuff competently, but it is all too Tess of the Durbervilles without Hardy's talent for characterisation. We have seen the threshing machine and traction engines bringing modernity to a largely medieval English rural scene too many times before, for this to be anything but a tired rehash of work done better by other hands. Someone must have believed that adding a ghost-busters theme to the usual mix is enough to lift the whole thing out of mediocrity. I have to report that they were mistaken.