Brilliant and touching

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Undeniable is a two parter that was made for some reason other than the amusement of the public. It had a great cast ---except for the heroine's husband--- but overall covered too much familiar ground; the retiring cop trying to solve that pesky case after 20 years and risking her pension (sigh,) the husband and father whom are tired of the heroine's histrionic behaviour, the perp's outraged daughter who finally sees the light and the perp's struggle to run when faced with exposure. If anything this should have been done as a bad low budget movie and not a two part mini broadcast in prime time paid out of lottery and license fees Writing this review it dawned on me that this might be a case of giving someone a backhander; otherwise why would something that is this bad, cliché filled, ever get into production? BBC turns out so much good drama... Luther, Endeavour, Jonathan Creek, etc.etc., that there must be some skullduggery behind the commissioning of this. Bet there is a tale of intrigue, blackmail, money laundering, perhaps even death and infidelity involved in getting this dog greenlit. There's a mini series here.....But I digress, been around too long and see so often why crap is produced and it never has anything to do with art. Must say though always a pleasure to see the beautiful and talented Pippa Haywood in anything. Her range and skill are amazing, though I'm not, and have never been, a monarchist (in the interest of integrity, I may have considered kingship in my per-adolescent youth) but would think it timely to award Ms. Haywood a "dameship"(?)

This two part ITV drama opens in the 1980s with a mother and daughter stopping off at a lake; while there the young girl, Jane Phillips, witnesses her mother's murder. Cutting to the present she now has a child of her own and is expecting another. While going to hospital for a routine check-up she is convinced the man she bumps into is the killer. She reports this to the police but the man, eminent oncologist Andrew Rawlins, denies all knowledge of the event and the fact that Jane suffers from depression and has been 'sure' somebody else did it before won't help her case. Still an accusation has been made and DI Alison Hall really wants to close this case before she retires as it was the first murder case she ever worked on. When DNA evidence shows that Rawlins' blood doesn't match that found at the scene Jane still insists he is the killer and even those closest to her start to abandon her.This wasn't a bad two part drama but it did feature some fairly obvious clichés; the retiring cop determined to close a case, an accused man who appears to beyond reproach and a witness who nobody believes… including her husband and father. The conclusion wasn't a surprise but how it was done was rather clever… I wouldn't have figured it out if I hadn't seen something very similar in a CSI type programme quite recently! The cast do a decent job; Claire Goose is suitably disturbed as Jane, Peter Firth is good as Rawlins; convincing yet still suspicious and Pippa Haywood does well as DI Hall; it was nice to see a cop played in a fairly understated way. Overall this was a decent drama; certainly worth spending a couple of hours watching.