Steve M

Disappointingly, The Ink Black Heart was in my opinion long and drawn out, tedious at times, with a complex plot which struggled to maintain my attention. The only saving grace was the performance of Holliday Granger as Robin. She seemed to have a lot more character and charisma than Strike himself, I'm sure he is a good actor but in this role I found him slightly annoying and uninspiring, a bit of an anti hero.

Pretty awful, totally unbelievable characters, the real Police must be wincing at the glaringly obviously procedural errors, and poor interviewing. How someone like her could rise to Detective Inspector is beyond me. Add the annoying ongoing theme of prejudice and racial profiling, oh and she seems to be sleeping with everyone other bloke she meets....yawn....

I stuck with this promising, gritty drama over several episodes, but once again a poor ending spoiled it. Very dramatic armed robbery scene ends in a bloodbath, with Boisie getting killed. Glass cases smashed, shots fired, lots of noise, bedlam in the high street but somehow Joan, covered in blood manages to escape in high heels as police respond at a snail's pace. Not only does she evade the police, but manages to clean herself up and then snatch her daughter from school. No coverage of any police investigation, not even a police presence at the foster parents home as Joan casually drops her daughter off again. When she finally does give herself up she's out in 4 years and gets abroad to collect her not inconsiderable share of the loot??! Really? It was at this point I discovered that most of this was fiction, and not very good fiction at that. Ah well.......

One of those films that is watchable, as long as you don't mind some excruciatingly embarrassing scenes and dialogue. Typical Richard Curtis stuff, Rhys Ifans is very funny and probably saves the film.

Not impressed by first episode, extremely far fetched and I find it hard to believe that Sally Lindsay's character would be so gullible after such a short space of time, and be so reckless with money earmarked for her post divorce home. I'll watch the other episodes out of curiosity, unless it gets too bad, but a big improvement is needed. ***Endured the rest of it out of boredom and curiosity, absolutely terrible, it had to be Neil Morrisey, it was never going to be a bit part for him. Ridiculous and unbelievable, Sally (as Madame le blanc mk 2), was out of her league too I'm afraid.

Just watched tonight's episode of this series, for me Ralf Little is woefully miscast, good comedy actor but in this role he comes across as a bit wooden, and lacking any character. The storyline in this episode was rather preposterous too, it's either time to pack it all in, or come up with better stuff than this, sorry!

Promising beginnings, 50's nostalgia in a rural English village, with actors of the calibre of Robson Green and James Norton. However as it went on we saw the predictable 21st century attitudes and political correctness introduced more and more. Even leaving aside the matter of a vicar who spends more time in the police station than his church, viewers were also asked to swallow (in 1950's rural England don't forget) the casual attitudes to sex and boozing involving a bed hopping clergyman, and gay behaviour from another clergyman at a time when it was still illegal. There was a sad end to the nicely believable love story of Sydney and Amanda, with Sydney's ridiculous exit following a whirlwind relationship with a visiting deep south American whom he'd barely met. Will Chamber's character did his best in the series that followed but inevitably the storylines became quite thin and there was a lot of "it's a fair cop guv" when the perpetrator was discovered. For all that it's still an easy watch if there's nothing else on and you don't find the inconsistencies too annoying.