Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

Charming and brutal

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

I think it has been satirical enough and revealing. Especially the plot where Stephen thought he killed a boy when he was 12 but Andrew assured him that he didn't- people forgot what happened when they are young, or their memories have errors, like when your parents or classmates told you that you have done something in the past, you can't recall it AT ALL. And of course the ending when Mitchell persuaded the woman lost her husband that it was him who found the body. He is less and less confident about himself and his way of communicating with people. Apparently it was not just the woman. It was HE with EVERYONE. I can so relate that sometimes I think my manners of communicating are so lame.

The writing is satisfyingly excellent. Dark humour, much as with peep show, causes that pleasingly awful cringe. Where this differs is that the tension arches its back from the first episode to the last, like a malevolent cat performing a tickle stretch.The level of observational comedy in this is so consistent, I begin to wonder if the writers discovered an unwritten diary of mine labelled "things I half-noticed, but neither properly analysed, nor was diligent enough to write down."As for the compelling darkness, "Back" opens out intrigues to outdo much "serious" TV drama. These are the shadows of comedy - a perspective on real lives that can handle being pushed into caricature.One of the best things I've seen on TV.

Mitchell and Webb had a great series with Peep Show and I discovered after that they had done their own clever funny Sketch show "That Mitchell and Webb look" but this was an utter disappointment!AlthoughI only watched the first couple of episodes then switched channels. It could be that its a shaky start and they're a bit rusty from their previous success of Peep show so there could be that pressure of surpassing such a successful show!

Just because it's written by Blackwell (writer for Peep Show) and stars Mitchell and Webb, don't expect this to be a Peep Show spin off - lot's of people I've spoken to did, and so got put off when they found out it was a different programme, with different characters, different humour and a different story.I watched the first episode as I was intrigued into this new story by the Peep Show team, but I knew to be open minded and didn't expect to see Mitchell playing a Mark Corrigan and Webb playing a Jeremy Usbourne.Instead what you have is a very intriguing piece of comedy drama. I've only seen up until the 4th episode, and I've heard the 5th is we where get all the pay offs and where it gets much darker.The drama is really clever, to be fair, and unexpectedly dramatic from a sitcom writer and a sitcom duo. There are certainly very funny moments, especially at the end of episode 1 and there were some very funny moments in episode 4, with it being reminiscent of the Mark/Jez conversations of Peep Show, EXCEPT in reverse. Andrew (Webb's character) seems to be an almost perfect foster son, he's a world traveller with a clear mind, good intentions, a cultured palate and wants to live his life the best way. Stephen (Mitchell) whilst still a rule-abiding citizen, over-thinker like Mark Corrigan is more mystified by the world around him, and more of a drinker, and sometimes needs Andrew to dodge some bullets for him (it was the other way round sometimes in Peep Show).To summarise, don't judge this show at all based off Peep Show. It's not the same, and should be judged by it's own storytelling and merits, and by all factors its been very good so far. I'm about to watch the rest of the episodes, and I feel like all this drama and these questions the audience has are about to be answered (or maybe not).Give it a try