Channel 4 tonight! Rumours abound that it may be the best thing that Channel 4 has done in years. Relentlessly grim, mind you...

Relentlessly tedious more like.

I spent the entire episode looking for location mistakes (such as an enormous skylight or solar heating panel on the roof of a terrace in a long shot), like I did with Life on Mars.

Unlike with Life on Mars, I didn't keep getting distracted by the story.

Yes it was bloody hard work to be sure; needlessly slow paced first half of the story that lasted almost to the end, with a totally rushed and unsatisfactory ending bolted on in the last 10 minutes. I was left feeling pretty short changed by this LOM wannabee.

Note to Channel 4: copious, gratuitous, 'shocking' violence is no substitute for a bloody good yarn that's well told.

4/10, must try harder

Okay, I haven't seen it yet (had to tape it), but aside from both being set in the 1970s, they don't have all that much in common (the source predates LoM by a fair distance, too). I'm a little disappointed that it seems not have been all that great, though 1973 was the weakest of the Quartet books, so hopefully next week's 1980 will be better...

(my main fear is that by leaving out 1977, none of the next two films will make any sense...)

Well, apart from the leads being out-of-place, skinny, brashly intelligent young types trying to piece something they don't understand together.

I don't remember the ending. I think I fell asleep.

Eddie Dunford isn't the lead of the Quartet ;)

Ah, but he was presented as the lead of last night's episode. You're working from knowledge of the full source material, I'm working from the telly last night.

Yeah, certainly - I can't help but wonder if they would have been better off dropping most of 1973 and including some of it with 1977 instead (1973 is by far the weakest book, but unfortunately does contain a lot of stuff that is important later on - the other three are fantastic, though even more grim, if that's possible...).

I mostly enjoyed it.

The pacing was a bit screwed up, I agree - I don't mind slow starts, but the end seemed incredibly rushed and somewhat nonsensical.

I thought it evoked an appropriate feeling for the period it was set in - the terrible clothes, concrete eyesores etc.

And now some spoilery bits in white text.


Most obvious and annoying mistake by the main character - he tells Paula that they can clear off down south and that she should pack a bag, THEN LEAVES HER ALONE FOR 2 HOURS! This made no sense to me, if all he was doing was going to hand the evidence to the policeman, why not take her with him? It was so obvious she'd end up dead in the intervening time.

Question - was the thin policeman who was torturing him at the end the same one that he called "one of the good ones" and handed the evidence to?

Final thing, I cannot believe they resolved the identity of the child murderer by having him simply say something like "Yes, personal weakness, I'm no angel". Unless this is a misdirection revealed in a later episode, it seemed a pathetic way to tie up the plot.

Oh, I should add that even if the first episode wasn't great, I'm looking forward to the next one because Paddy Considine is in it and I will watch anything he's in after I discovered him in Dead Man's Shoes, in which he is superb.

Could have easily lost at least 40 minutes and probably would have improved it massively. I don't mind over the top violence, it was the sex which I took exception to, not that the characters had sex rather why did we have to see the act itself? It's not as if it advanced the story in any way.

On the other hand Sean Bean's costumes and hair were the stars of the show.

Hrm. Well...I loved the concrete (being a fan of Brutalism, it was wonderful!). But yeah. Far too ponderous, and the changes removed a lot of the ambiguity present in the book (for starters, Sean Bean isn't the killer in the original, and there's a lot more factions present). I admire the ambition, but I'm hoping 1980 is a lot better...

Last nights episode was much better than last weeks.

Oh my does Mr Peace hate the West Yorkshire coppers.

It was.

However, it still wasn't all that great. Certainly not the 5 Star 'OMG! Saviour of British television' that a lot of the dullard critics claim it to be. But it's nice to see Channel 4 make an effort to not do crap television for once. They made a better stab at it with the Devils Whore methinks.

It does seem complete waste of David Morrissey. I'm assuming that his role will be expanded in the next episode.

Yeah he can't have said more than about 50 words so far. I assume as well the next episode he might do more.

I find the West Yorkshire Police = all bad thing a little to simplistic as well. I assume it's more complicated and interesting in the books.

Well that final episode explained everything so clearly we'll have to watch the whole thing again to make any sense of it.

And who'd have thought the Scottish Reverend would turn out to be a pervert?

Let me show you how to love me.

Come on, you know you want it.