Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Many in Britain were shocked when the police were exhuming bodies in the Manchester area with suspicion of foul play by a respected family doctor. This was in the late 1990s and this drama from ITV was shown a few years after the events and hence had to tread a fine and sensitive line.James Bolam plays Dr Frederick Shipman, at first the well respected GP with a small, thriving practice and a respected member of the community.However even when the police investigate him Bolam gives a hint of the sly humour that Shipman apparently had. As well as being a serial killer this was a doctor not ready to buckle under police pressure. James Hazeldine in one of his final roles plays the dogged policeman who is persuaded by the daughter of one of Doctor's victim's that Shipman might have a darker side.We get an idea as to how Shipman got caught, it is a part police procedural as they forensically examine his computer. Shipman made a mistake in forging a will of one of his victim's. We never really get an idea as to why he did it or what his motives were. It seems we might never know.Bolam's performance is key in keeping your interest in this drama and this is a tight film without getting too exploitative.

I was gratefully surprised when I watched this movie, and after I was informed that was a TV Movie! Well, it doesn't seem like that: the timing is so perfect that we don't notice the intersection for commercials breaks. James Bolam is extremely convictive in the role of the physician that pretends to be GOD, choosing the day and the hour that a person should die. In a scale of 10, I give 6.

I thought that James Bolam played the part of Dr Frederick Shipman very sensitively and he certainly did the best he could with what must have been a tough role.The setting for the drama was very good and the scenes representing Christmas 1997 were very good. I think it caught the atmosphere of the whole thing very well.The humour displayed by James Bolam was very authentic to the real Dr Shipman and the sense of theatre he displayed to some patients in his surgery was true to the real character which I guess must have been relatively easy for the actor to do as he is so familiar with playing in comedy.I particularly liked the confrontations between Dr Shipman and the police as well as the interview scenes.The high-light of James Bolam's acting in my opinion came when he broke down after being confronted with the computer evidence and we see him crying and clinging to his solicitor's legs. This was an excellent piece of acting.2 hours was not long enough as there was so much that could have been covered and one got the feeling that it had been rushed a little, and maybe the programme makers had found it difficult to know just where to start.I found it intriguing and sad as well. It made you think about the case and yes, maybe it did supply some understanding into how the tragedy came about.

This drama retraced some of the murders commited by primary care physician Harold Shipman in the Manchester area of the UK in the late 90s. Shipman was convicted of injecting his patients with lethal doses of diamorphine. Despite the highly unusual number of deaths in his practice his actions went unnoticed for a long period of time, and even now the authorities are unsure about the number of people that he may have killed. The film is low key, and does not attemot to provide any insight or reasoning into Shipman's motives, it simply documents the events as recorded in court transcripts. Nevertheless it is a powerful film; James Bolam a stalwart of light comedy in the UK is well cast. The film has caused some controversy here, as it has been shown on television before the inquiries into Shipman have been completed. Relatives of those who died tried to prevent the film been shown at this stage. On balance the events are documented as sensitively as possible; and the drama is good if very very uncomfortable viewing.