I would not say this mini-series is awful. However, this is one of those "missed opportunities" that makes us sad because it could have been more.
There is no excuse for the lazy writing displayed in The Escape Artist. Others in this review thread have covered a lot of the problems with this screenplay but here are the ones that bugged me the most:
+++++SERIOUS SPOILERS BELOW +++++
First we have the script outline (the "high concept"):
1.) Legal Beagle gets an obvious murderer off on a technicality.
2.) Murderer kills wife of legal beagle.
3.) Murderer is tried and gets away scott-free, again through a technicality.
4.) Murderer is himself murdered.
5.) Legal beagle is arrested and tried for that murder.
6.) Legal beagle also gets off on a technicality.
7.) A character finally lays out how the legal beagle MAY have committed his "perfect crime".
This "high concept" has it's own problems but a skilled writer should be able to make these 7 points work right?
Wrong.
The set-up: The protagonist "legal beagle" (played by Tennant) gets an obvious murderer off on a technicality. I don't know enough about the English legal system to understand why this doesn't just result in a mistrial but I'm generous so I'll buy it.
Now the problems with the screenplay come fast and furious. The motive for the next murder is laughable. Yet for the story to unfold, a motive is certainly needed. Unfortunately the writer (David Wolstencroft) doesn't have an idea about how to make it believable so he takes the lazy way out.
Issue 1. Why does the psychopathic murderer kill the legal beagle's wife? This point is not part of the high concept so rather than come up with a plausible motive (and I can think of several that he could have used), Wolstencroft employs the ham-fisted "not shaking hands with the man who got him off" as the motive and leaves it at that. ("Hey, he's a psychopath so who knows what would motivate him?").
So the viewer is left to assume that he would commit this second murder for no real reason whatsoever. The psychopath also has to assume that his only way of getting away with this second murder is to HOPE that another grievous error will be made by the system.
Sure enough, Wolstencroft provides us with this grievous error (a storage unit is searched for a key bit of evidence without a warrant) and this error gets the murderer off on a technicality once again.
Point 2. Moving to the end, Wolstencroft's climactic expository scene where the competing defense attorney (Sophie Okonedo) confronts the legal beagle with her speculation of how he committed his perfect murder of the psychopath is completely implausible. Not what she lays out, but that she knows any of it in the first place.
Let's be honest here; Okonedo's character would have ZERO way of knowing anything about the murder of the psychopath except - wait for it - for a chance encounter she had earlier in the story where she shows up at the tail end of a meeting between the legal beagle and a local underworld "operator". This underworld operator evidently can provide background medical information on the psychopath - information that the legal beagle ostensibly uses to kill him later in the story.
Here's the problem... The legal beagle meets with this underworld operator at night on a deserted street nowhere close to where Okenedo's character would ever go at that time of night. Yet incredibly, just as this meeting finishes she just happens to walk up to the duo as they are finishing up their mysterious conversation.
THE SAME FREAKIN' MOMENT!!
For the viewer's benefit, she makes a point of mentioning that she recognizes this underworld dude so we have to assume that this bit of dialog is there for an important reason (otherwise, why shoe-horn this implausible situation into the story?)
Wolstencroft needs to have someone (in this case, Okonedo's competing attorney character) speak key expository dialog later but realizes that this dialog can't be spoken without a catalyzing scene earlier in the story.
Someone had to have asked Wolstencroft after they read the script, "wait a second, how does the competing attorney come to suspect the legal beagle in the first place in order for her to layout the exact method he used to kill his wife's murderer?"
Wolstencroft's answer: "You're right, that makes no sense wait, I've got it! What if she just happens to walk in on a key meeting between the legal beagle and his conspirator planning the murder? That would explain it right?"
So of course, the climax of the story hinges on this chance meeting that would never have happened had the writer had any wits about him. This kind of maddening writing permeates this script. A script that could have been smart but ended up being the opposite.
Final thought. The screenplay is about how the guilty can get away with murder through technicalities. So why not make the psychopath's motive for his murders that he knows enough about the legal system to escape prosecution by gaming it? But this is never explored. So the psychopath is just lucky that the system was incompetent twice in a row rather than pursuing the angle that a serial murderer could pervert the system if he was smart enough to do so. Wolstencroft completely misses this story element - to the viewer's frustration.
I still recommend The Escape Artist for David Tennant fans as he is great as always.
There is no excuse for the lazy writing displayed in The Escape Artist. Others in this review thread have covered a lot of the problems with this screenplay but here are the ones that bugged me the most:
+++++SERIOUS SPOILERS BELOW +++++
First we have the script outline (the "high concept"):
1.) Legal Beagle gets an obvious murderer off on a technicality.
2.) Murderer kills wife of legal beagle.
3.) Murderer is tried and gets away scott-free, again through a technicality.
4.) Murderer is himself murdered.
5.) Legal beagle is arrested and tried for that murder.
6.) Legal beagle also gets off on a technicality.
7.) A character finally lays out how the legal beagle MAY have committed his "perfect crime".
This "high concept" has it's own problems but a skilled writer should be able to make these 7 points work right?
Wrong.
The set-up: The protagonist "legal beagle" (played by Tennant) gets an obvious murderer off on a technicality. I don't know enough about the English legal system to understand why this doesn't just result in a mistrial but I'm generous so I'll buy it.
Now the problems with the screenplay come fast and furious. The motive for the next murder is laughable. Yet for the story to unfold, a motive is certainly needed. Unfortunately the writer (David Wolstencroft) doesn't have an idea about how to make it believable so he takes the lazy way out.
Issue 1. Why does the psychopathic murderer kill the legal beagle's wife? This point is not part of the high concept so rather than come up with a plausible motive (and I can think of several that he could have used), Wolstencroft employs the ham-fisted "not shaking hands with the man who got him off" as the motive and leaves it at that. ("Hey, he's a psychopath so who knows what would motivate him?").
So the viewer is left to assume that he would commit this second murder for no real reason whatsoever. The psychopath also has to assume that his only way of getting away with this second murder is to HOPE that another grievous error will be made by the system.
Sure enough, Wolstencroft provides us with this grievous error (a storage unit is searched for a key bit of evidence without a warrant) and this error gets the murderer off on a technicality once again.
Point 2. Moving to the end, Wolstencroft's climactic expository scene where the competing defense attorney (Sophie Okonedo) confronts the legal beagle with her speculation of how he committed his perfect murder of the psychopath is completely implausible. Not what she lays out, but that she knows any of it in the first place.
Let's be honest here; Okonedo's character would have ZERO way of knowing anything about the murder of the psychopath except - wait for it - for a chance encounter she had earlier in the story where she shows up at the tail end of a meeting between the legal beagle and a local underworld "operator". This underworld operator evidently can provide background medical information on the psychopath - information that the legal beagle ostensibly uses to kill him later in the story.
Here's the problem... The legal beagle meets with this underworld operator at night on a deserted street nowhere close to where Okenedo's character would ever go at that time of night. Yet incredibly, just as this meeting finishes she just happens to walk up to the duo as they are finishing up their mysterious conversation.
THE SAME FREAKIN' MOMENT!!
For the viewer's benefit, she makes a point of mentioning that she recognizes this underworld dude so we have to assume that this bit of dialog is there for an important reason (otherwise, why shoe-horn this implausible situation into the story?)
Wolstencroft needs to have someone (in this case, Okonedo's competing attorney character) speak key expository dialog later but realizes that this dialog can't be spoken without a catalyzing scene earlier in the story.
Someone had to have asked Wolstencroft after they read the script, "wait a second, how does the competing attorney come to suspect the legal beagle in the first place in order for her to layout the exact method he used to kill his wife's murderer?"
Wolstencroft's answer: "You're right, that makes no sense wait, I've got it! What if she just happens to walk in on a key meeting between the legal beagle and his conspirator planning the murder? That would explain it right?"
So of course, the climax of the story hinges on this chance meeting that would never have happened had the writer had any wits about him. This kind of maddening writing permeates this script. A script that could have been smart but ended up being the opposite.
Final thought. The screenplay is about how the guilty can get away with murder through technicalities. So why not make the psychopath's motive for his murders that he knows enough about the legal system to escape prosecution by gaming it? But this is never explored. So the psychopath is just lucky that the system was incompetent twice in a row rather than pursuing the angle that a serial murderer could pervert the system if he was smart enough to do so. Wolstencroft completely misses this story element - to the viewer's frustration.
I still recommend The Escape Artist for David Tennant fans as he is great as always.