Change Your Image
smuffin
Reviews
Bodkin (2024)
Good Mystery, Bad Errors
Although this is a very clever and well acted murder mystery it is littered with unforgiveable factual errors, mostly rooted in wrong police/justice/legal mistakes.
First of all Interpol doesn't have specific officers/agents and doesn't issue ID/Warrant Cards as it is usually the local police that carry out their hands on work.
Secondly Long Kesh ceased to exist in the 1980s.
Lastly, Dove never broke the Official Secrets Act simply as she never would have signed it. Not only that but the whistleblower she was dealing with worked for the Department of Health and although subject to Confidentiality it wouldn't be covered by the OSA. Although she was found to be in possession of a government laptop she was handed it and not culpable for it. Therefore, the poorly invented extradition storyline simply was implausible and just not going to happen.
It comes across as poorly researched on basic information just to create unneeded plot points and secondary backstories.
Glad to see the always excellent David Wilmot and he excels here. Will Forte is solid as a bit of a fish out of water. However, the series lead is just poor.
Silent Witness: Choices: Part 2 (2005)
Excellent
I have to start this with a rebuttal to a previous reviewer who basically said the series had dropped off following the departure of Amanda Burton when for me at any rate it has largely improved. Making Leo the pseudo lead character and having the excellent Harry and Nikki as co-leads has turned what I thought to be a poor show excellent.
Moving on to this story arc and it has been well written in showing the pure grief of Dalton so many months on when most series would have had him back to normal and ignoring the pain. The story itself was well played out although the 'big reveal' was obvious from the get go. The young actor playing Wayne did an incredible job and I'd say was an obvious inspiration for the character of Ryan in Line of Duty.
Overall a well though out and well acted couple of episodes.
Silent Witness: Sins of the Fathers: Part 1 (1996)
Poor Backstory
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.
Misfits: Episode #3.1 (2011)
Poor first outing
Compared to season one and season 2 with the exception of the Christmas special episode 1 of season 3 was beyond poor. Losing Robert Sheehan was a big mistake, then replacing with the frankly one note overrated Joseph Gilgun was apocalyptic. Gilgun simply plays the same character in everything he does yet still gets employment which just does not make sense. He adds nothing to the team and really detracts from firmly established characters. This continues throughout the season and is ruining a once brilliant show.
Hawaii Five-0: Hala I Ke Ala O'i'ole Mai (2019)
Spoilers
So revenge is ok if your buddies have been killed but not if it was your parents?????? So here we see our brave hero perform illegal acts of torture on a foreign national, then take a team using government resources to fly 10,000 miles to a neutral sovereign state to kill the man who ordered the hit on the team who illegally killed his parents 16 years before. The writers here have lost all sense with this and the previous episode. Hawaii Five-0 does not need these far too over the top episodes. What caps the stupidity of this particular episode is them murdering everyone in sight (yes murder as they have no legal right to do what they have) and there be no consequences for Steve & the team, but all the henchmen get arrested, like really???? An episode that wasted the usually brilliant David Keith and the always dependable Chris Vance. All this just to take out the least believeable antagonist in the series' history. And please CBS, stop bringing back the terrible Catherine, a not very believeable spy/agent and the relationship angle between her and McGarrett needs to be put to bed.