Mayday BBC 1 [** Spoilers **]

JP Liz V1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2U6jIUdrQs

Already getting compared to The Killing

Sophie Okonedo, Peter Firth, Sam Spruell and Aidan Gillen star in the new drama,
which focuses on the disappearance of a young girl from an idyllic
community

Starts on Sunday at 9pm until Thursday with five episodes

mike65

Looks like the beebs latest attempt to come up with another "Five Days". Stripping a drama over 5 consecutive nights is hugely annoying, esp on a Champions League week.

Mr E

Sky+ FTW.

Looks Good.

Kiwi_knock

I thought it was pretty good, looking forward to the rest of it. Some interesting characters and storylines.

ncmc

I enjoyed it tonight, the ominous music was overdone a tad, but as kiwi said, some interesting storylines and characters. I don't think I'd watch it over consecutive nights though, will Sky + it and watch it over a couple of weeks.

One thing, I missed the first ten minutes, I joined as the young fella came in and found Aidan Gillen struggling with the heavy bag. Did I miss anything important?

Lovely Bloke

mike65 wrote: »

Looks like the beebs latest attempt to come up with another "Five Days". Stripping a drama over 5 consecutive nights is hugely annoying, esp on a Champions League week.

Still not got the hang of the record function on your toploader Mike?

mike65

Hey I have a PVR but I don't a second input cable yet! (I'll get round to that when I can work on it without freezing or drowning).

ejmaztec

Aidan Gillen's a very busy person, he and his agent must be as happy as pigs in sh1t.:D

In this he seems to be slightly bonkers, but not as bonkers as he was in Love Hate.

I usually get put off with the Beeb's 5 nights in a row marathons, but intend to watch this because of the script and the quirky characters,

even though one of these characters, played by Peter Firth, was last seen hanging by the neck in the woods

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

I've been watching this all week although I'm not sure why as it's not the best. There's too many characters and they're kind of overplaying the "everyone's a suspect" thing a bit. I guess it's supposed to be about suspicion and all that rather than an actual murder mystery show because they're not really following the investigation from the police side at all.
I think it could have been a lot better if they'd focused on the missing girls family and Gillen and son next door. Have the others as minor characters. But that's just me.

I have no idea who killed the girl but I called it a few episodes ago that

Gillen's son killed his mother, probably by accident, and that's why Gillen never talks about it and why he kind of hates him and why the son keeps seeing the mother

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Is mainly how I feel about that ending.

I feel they had the guts of a good show here. They should have focused on the family of the girl and the next door neighbours and everyone else should have been minor characters during the investigation. They basically spent 5 episodes pointing the finger at everyone and then ended it with literal finger pointing at the killer. What a load.

ejmaztec

The Beeb seems to commission a lot of dramas with sh1t endings, and this was another. I didn't mind them having a lot of odd families involved, nor did I mind being kept in the dark about the police investigation. The latter would have provided some evidence of who to include, and who to rule out as being the culprit, and it would have been a cop drama and nothing else.

The end result left Aidan Gillen likely to spend a long time in the slammer, because I don't think the neurotic ex cop was going to own up to what she'd done, despite the fact that her husband had keeled over, because that would mean that she would have been banged up for perverting the course of justice, leading to her kids being taken into care etc...

I like the way the husband's ashes were mixed in with the dog food...:pac:

ncmc

I felt the same way, I felt that for a 5 hour programme, very little actually happened. There was a lot of ominous music and meaningful looks, but not a lot of actual substance. I thought Malcolm Spicer was an interesting character who unfortunatley wasn't in it enough. I felt the Aidan Gillen story was a bit pointless, it had a lot of potential but didn't really go anywhere and I felt his acting was just hammy and over the top.

The supernatural/witchcraft element was dangled in front of us, but again never went anywhere. I did like Ruth Spicers story, I liked the way the friend was there for her in the end and the ashses in the dog food was brilliant!

As for the end, I just didn't buy it at all,

whatever about Fiona protecting her family, having a picnic and laughing with her husband who has just killed a child? Just didn't ring true. And the story of Seth basically went nowhere too. Did he know who killed Hattie? Was it him that put her up the tree?

The worst thing about it, is that this programme really had potential, but in the end I felt very 'meh' about it. My husband wasn't watching with me and last night he asked me if it was any good. My honest answer was "I don't know!"

FloatingVoter

Funny that - I liked the ending. The dogs dinner was an instant classic and had me in stitches.

The looper cop was not going to stay compos mentis as long as the lookalike was cycling about literally pointing the finger. The evidence against Gillen was very circumstantial and nutter cops wife visit to his house that morning would be noted by any decent brief.

It did stretch credibility that the local nutter Seth would be released back into the community like that (he'd go to the nearest funny farm for his own safety). And yeah, going for a picnic with the child killer was taking it too far.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

I think I could have dealt with the weird twists and turns if...

they'd maybe had the twin show up dressed as the dead twin and do something more than point at the guy. I guess it leaves it open to your own interpretation. Both he and the wife will now have to live with seeing her everywhere and will probably go even more mental than they already are. I would have liked the wife to come back from setting Gillen up to find Caitlin had knifed her hubby and she'd wasted her time.

As for the magic stuff, I don't know,

were we supposed to believe that was actually Hattie on the bike at the end pointing? How did Caitlin know it was the police guy? Did Police Mum whisper it to her when she was being a big huggy creeper at the memorial service? But then why do that if you were going to cover it up?

Like I said, I think they had the guts of a good idea here, and rather than being a police procedural it was supposed to be a suspense piece about how everyone could be a suspect and how quickly everyone turns on each other, but I don't think it was executed as well as it could have been.

I do tip my hat, like everyone else, to the ashes in the dogs dinner. Best place for them.