Amber [RTE] [** Spoilers **]

rivaldo2000

pmy.murphy wrote: »

Maybe that goo eyes fella is holding her hostage so ben bailey will buy his knocked off booze

his name is smudge eyes

Happyman42

Mardy Bum wrote: »

You are mistaking it for Midsomer Murders or Poirot. You wanted a whodunit, and you didn't get it. Watch it again without the expectation of a whodunit and see what you think.

No I am not mistaking anything, all the criticisms of badly drawn characters, cliches, shallow plots and ponderous direction which neither revealed, or deepened our understanding, still apply.

Mardy Bum

DrDebaser wrote: »

Yeah it broke boards but didn't do much else! I'm slightly less fed up after reading post about the writers intentions, and RTE certainly didn't do themselves any favours by promoting as a whodunit . I am guessing there are a lot of viewers out there who are feeling cheated and that they could have done something more interesting with the four hours.

Its more indicative of the viewership tbh. Whodunits sell. Many, many people like whodunits (and soaps). They are one of the main dramas on TV at the minute and as a result are all boring crap (like soaps). I'm glad this tried to be something different and experimented formally.

ktm

Choochtown wrote: »

I don't mind ambiguous endings but for **** sake that had so many loose ends and red herrings.

Why did the journalist woman visit Charlie's girlfriend?
How did the creep in prison know what was on Amber's wall?
How could the Guards stop Ben from flying to the Ukraine?

And to add to that list why did the Irish prostitutes drift in and out of a weirdy eastern European accent ( badly )

grey_so_what

Let this be an end to Amber...........

Start up a Petition.......No Amber for the LLS...............

dobsdave

Mardy Bum wrote: »

You are mistaking it for Midsomer Murders or Poirot. You wanted a whodunit, and you didn't get it. Watch it again without the expectation of a whodunit and see what you think.

I think people (and me) are talking about the bad acting, tedious storyline, and ridiculous scenes (baby throwing phone into the drain for eg) and so many plot-holes that were left unanswered.
I have seen many a film/drama that doesn't tie up loose ends, but was gripping through out and made you think at the end.

This did neither.

katydid

It was not sold as a soul searching drama about the aftermath of a child's disappearance. If so, it should have just focused on that without flashing back to the actual disappearance and offering us so many clues, only to leave us hanging. And leave so many questions unanswered.

gerbilgranny

Could the Troika have taken her?

Harry Angstrom

Mardy Bum wrote: »

The vast majority of people who watched the show have been sucked in by RTE’s marketing of the show and missed out on the writer’s intent. The writer has said in an interview that the story was inspired by the disappearance of a friend. The friend had been spotted on CCTV near a pier but his body was never found to this day. He didn’t really elaborate on that but it seems that it was thought to be a suicide and it was very unexpected.
He wrote the show in the immediate aftermath of the incident. He also talked about the fallout the incident had on those closest to his friend. RTE has marketed the show as a whodunit/Where’s Amber story which I believe is contrary to the writer’s motives as he is trying to examine the effects of a disappearance which has no resolution on a family and others e.g. suicide, deportation, madness, romance, despair, acceptance etc.
The show charts the development of the characters from a number of perspectives with the most prominent role given to the father followed by the mother, followed by the son and then you have Charlie, the prisoner, the journalist etc. The camera angles used to film are sometimes shot from a first person perspective and some scenes are repeated from different angles (at first I thought this was just filler) which drives home this point. The layered form adds to the theme as the audience are given the chance to examine the character’s development as time passes.
Interestingly, Amber’s disappearance is purposely filmed from a long distance to emphasise the lack of connect between her and the audience; when she meets the Goth guy we can’t properly hear what she says for example and we never learn anything about the Goth as no character provides his name. There are many hints that it she may have committed suicide. Her family are very unstable. We see her mother likes to party in the first few scenes. Her father is a philanderer and egotistical. She has a fascination with mermaids and the daughters of the air. There are various underwater shots and also her bedroom is underwater. However, there is also plenty of evidence that she did not commit suicide. She only got off at that stop because she missed the earlier stop etc. Now, this may seem like a contradiction but it fits perfectly with the theme again. No one knows what has happened to Amber (we as an audience have the story pieced together by the evidence found) therefore there are a multitude of possibilities and we never get a first person perspective from her like we do the other characters. The shaggy dog storylines with Charlie and the prisoner are vital to the examination of the fallout of the disappearance.
The show has not been about what happened Amber, it has been about the fallout as a result of the disappearance e.g. Dad becomes a “hero” by saving girl but is not allowed see his son, detective gets promotion, mother finds new man, manga boy and Amber’s friend meet etc. The audience are left unsatisfied similar to the family in real life which I believe was a brave move as the writer decided not to pack the show in a nice little package and put a bow on top. People expected a nice, simple whodunit (even though there are already plenty of these types of boring, conventional shows on TV already) but there was a lot more than meets the eye to the show in terms of its form and content.

Mardy Bum

Happyman42 wrote: »

No I am not mistaking anything, all the criticisms of badly drawn characters, cliches, shallow plots and ponderous direction which neither revealed, or deepened our understanding, still apply.

They don't really. A cliche would be if we were told the ending or given some very nice characters whom we are to feel sorry for. A shallow plot would be one that pandered to the audience. The audience is left with unanswered questions similar to what happens in reality reminiscent of Friel's Faith Healer (obviously no where near as good, but similar in content and structure).

sadie9

Right everyone, meet yez all 8am at RTE. Have placards ready. Amber, Amber, Where the *&%k is Amber.

Mardy Bum

Harry Angstrom wrote: »

Excellently constructed argument

You are ready for the world of academia Harry.

DeadlyTwig

My UPC box didn't record the last episode! But by the looks of it, it saved me a hour of my life!

What exactly happened in the end??

meath4sam

Choochtown wrote: »

I don't mind ambiguous endings but for **** sake that had so many loose ends and red herrings.

Why did the journalist woman visit Charlie's girlfriend?
How did the creep in prison know what was on Amber's wall?
How could the Guards stop Ben from flying to the Ukraine?

Looking for Charlie as she knew Charlie had ambers phone but he had been deported when she got there, the creep in prison was friends with the guy who robbed ambers phone, u know guards there all mates.

katydid

Mardy Bum wrote: »

You are mistaking it for Midsomer Murders or Poirot. You wanted a whodunit, and you didn't get it. Watch it again without the expectation of a whodunit and see what you think.

There was nothing to suggest it wasn't a whodunit. We were given "clues", or so we thought, all along. But they were all red herrings.

Utopia Parkway

The best that can be said about it is that it was a more expensive and slightly better acted version of TV3's Deception from last year.

small town girl

katydid wrote: »

It was not sold as a soul searching drama about the aftermath of a child's disappearance. If so, it should have just focused on that without flashing back to the actual disappearance and offering us so many clues, only to leave us hanging. And leave so many questions unanswered.

Finding it very difficult to articulate exactly why I'm so pissed off with that fiasco of a show, think you did the job perfectly, thanks

Harry Angstrom

Mardy Bum wrote: »

You are ready for the world of academia Harry.

Thanks. I'm going to do my PhD on the TV series, Amber.

Soups123

Ok the ending is what it is but.,,,,,

So much **** in between that just made no sense like the saving of American girls in Ukraine, the cop getting promoted, the 14 yr old on a date with a 40yr old and him not telling her parents and just dropping her home all a bit random

teddyhead

They largely abandoned the crappy timeline gimmick for the last episode , which was about the only 'smart' thing this tripe had going for it.
Clunky half arsed rubbish , pretending to be big and clever.

Genevaman

It's totally obvious they were going for a Sopranos style ending. The big flop there is Sopranos wasn't a "whodunnit?" kind of show so it just comes off as lazy instead. Also, all those red herrings in the final scene were downright painful. Way to let down a series.

katydid

amdublin wrote: »

What was the purpose of the whole beach thing about there

What was the purpose of any of it?

wp_rathead

Not having an ending isn't edgy..
..It is lazy

ktm

DeadlyTwig wrote: »

My UPC box didn't record the last episode! But by the looks of it, it saved me a hour of my life!

What exactly happened in the end??

Nobody tell him, if we all had to endure that drivel I dont see why you should get off scot free. Watch it on RTE player.

Patty O Furniture

Skid X wrote: »

Amber broke Boards.

It could be, but i found a better & shocking conclusion watching ManU game :eek:

sticker wrote: »

Probably one of the worst dramas ever televised. Atrocious acting - especially mother, kid brother and journalist.

A Complete waste of time and a cop out attempt at artsy ending

That previous post that the writing was "brave" not to tie up the ending in a neat bow is a towering pile of steaming sh*t. My 6 year old could have delivered that twaddle.

Complete toss...

I hear this got rave reviews in LA as well? as the writer was on the last word last week.
It maybe based on events & no conclusions, but too many flashbacks, confused me as it was hard to keep up with this to make it interesting & now i'm confused more at it, & now i hear BBC4 are gonna show it, god help them :eek:

Harry Angstrom

It was such a load of pretentious shyte, I half-expected this caption to appear at the end of it:

pmy.murphy

RTE might as well have showed us 4 hours of Paint Drying, would have made more entertaining viewing

katydid

Mardy Bum wrote: »

They don't really. A cliche would be if we were told the ending or given some very nice characters whom we are to feel sorry for. A shallow plot would be one that pandered to the audience. The audience is left with unanswered questions similar to what happens in reality reminiscent of Friel's Faith Healer (obviously no where near as good, but similar in content and structure).

Nothing wrong with having an unresolved ending and leaving questions in mid air. It's the way you do it, and this was done very badly. Right up to the last few seconds, we were led to believe that all would be made clear. If they had made it clear, in the last twenty minutes or so, say, that the parents were coming to terms with the way things were and moving on, or not, as the case may be, and focused on that, fine. But flipping back to day one brought us back to the central question of what happened her. If the story was about the aftermath of her disappearance, that wasn't needed.

FourFourRED

From Imdb discussions:

I'm taking a long shot when I assume this, but maybe suicide is what happened to Amber. She had a fixation with mermaids and particularly daughters of the air. In one of the clue sections on Twitter (@dramaamber) we saw that the story of daughters of the air was one of a mermaid who took her own life to become immortal. That was the main clue that led me to this suspicion. I also noticed that, while in jail, Terrence was reading a book called Andersen's Fairy Tales. It seemed that the writers of this series put the fairy tale part in for a reason. Then, Terrence hung himself after reading the book.
So, maybe when Amber got into town and she saw Manga Boy, he whispered the few sentences to her about a suicide pack??? Amber's last actual known whereabouts were on the bridge with the train tracks. Maybe she jumped? I know they never found her body, which is concerning, but the writers kept showing her pictures in the water and also in the ,clue bit, they kept showing the little mermaid snow globe under the same water. One last thing that led me in this direction was the lack of Jenni's concern or sadness for her supposed best friend who was missing and the fact that she lied about knowing Manga Boy. At the end we see Jenni walking arm in arm with Manga Boy. Maybe the two of them had a plan to get rid of Amber because Jenni wanted Manga Boy to herself. Maybe he tricked her into a suicide pack which he did not follow up on. We know Amber was at her wits end with her family situation and she was very infatuated with the mystical story of the little mermaid.

Not sure if it was suicide though. She seemed very anxious about losing her phone when she was on the Luas (which surely would'nt matter to her if that was her plan) & buying the lamp for her room would indicate she had planned to return. Missing her stop on the Luas and just randomly walking down the road of the next stop was just too random as well.

Pappacharlie

Sure a load of crap worse than twin peaks many moons ago. Absolute tripe!