Silent Witness (TV Series) Sins of the Fathers: Part 1 (1996) User Reviews

They didn't put a foot wrong in this first series.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 8 December 2019]

Sam once again gets heavily involved in a case, after the aged intended fiance of one of her students ends up dead.

It's a very good episode as with all from this first series, I liked the story, characters, and the plight of Sam's poor mother, who's gotten progressively worse. The tone once again is gritty and harsh, there aren't the lighter moments of jokes that we get nowadays, everything about this is bleak and serious.

Several uncomfortable scenes, including one where the monstrous older man learns the truth about the poor young Vietnamese Girl, Lan.

Very good. 8/10

Racism and Tradition

[Hitchcoc · 9/10 · 4 February 2019]

A young Vietnamese immigrant who is going to become a doctor, is promised to a man in marriage. He is much older than she. When he finds out that she was raped on a boat coming over, he calls her a prostitute and spit in her face. Later, when the man comes to her family restaurant, a fire is set, the man is murdered, and an investigation ensues. There are two strains here. One is the overt racism of the police. The other a bit of advice that Sam gave the young woman which led to her problems.

Poor Backstory

[smuffin · 3/10 · 1 February 2024]

An obvious killer much like both of the first two parts of this series. As someone coming to watch this over 20 years after it first aired I was hoping to see some justification for it still going strong after 27 years but was somewhat let down. The worst part of these episodes aren't the clearly poor plot and obvious killer but the backstory relating to the series lead. First of all no serving member of the Security Forces during the Troubles in Northern Ireland would have worn a service uniform anywhere near their own home let alone go to work in it. Then we have him clearly getting into an armoured Land Rover which again wouldn't be anywhere near the family home. It's clear what the backstory plot points are and the writers/director/producers wanted to show the uniform to avoid having to explain the characters job and reason for death, but it is painfully bad to watch such glaring factual errors to those who grew up in that place at that time. It has sadly made a show that was worth about 6 stars drop half of those.