The Pact

I can't understand why the low score. Well maybe I can. It's four women in the lead. It's a Black woman as the senior police officer. It's the presence of an utter turd who gets himself offed because he's an utter turd. 'Not all men' I hear you say. No not all men. No man I know behaves like that but you can hardly deny they exist. Anyway this isn't a true crime drama it's fiction so get over yourselves.

Great cast and great acting. And a surprise whodunnit. Well it surprised me anyway. Enjoyed it.

After an arrestingly twisty first few episodes - The Pact, a somewhat far-fetched crime drama set at a Welsh brewery - falls away in big chunks. What makes it worth a gander at all is the incredible cast which has no right to be this good - they all turn in great performances and to see Marsan and the brilliant Aneurin Barnard as a fractious father and son is glorious. Ade Edmondson is also there. If this had cut out a lot of the extraneous fat and red herringy side-plots and been three episodes rather than six it could've been really fascinating - but sadly it wasn't.

It started interesting with a promise of a juicy story with a nice cast. But quickly it became far too predictable with manufactured and unbelievable characters in a chain of annoyingly stupid choices.

I decided to watch the whole thing because some reviews here mentioned an unexpected twist in the end. There was no such thing.

A few points out of respect for the actors who had to work with a very crippled script and somehow got me through the episodes.. Except for the actress who played the main character Anne. A lot of dramatic staring in the distance with her mouth open and pausing far too long before producing her lines. In the end I had to look away every time she appeared.

While almost the entire rest of the cast did a far better job on it, I would especially like to see more of Jason Hughes.

Was really good to see his face again.

The BBC have had some hits and misses with recent thriller / dramas, and this is one of their hits. Good on the BBC for modernising their view on audiences by putting all episodes on iPlayer for us to binge watch.

We were really disappointed with the pursuit of love, with no bones and sparse storyline. The Pact, however, had us glued to each episode until we reached the final conclusion. No spoilers here, but if you love the Welsh countryside from Monmouth to the head of the valleys road, a compelling storyline that builds, twists and turns, and are willing to spend 6 hours to be thoroughly entertained, then this is for you.

Pay no attention to Marmite reviews - make your own mind up.

What's really upsetting is the MSM reviewers saying they like it. Despite it being on BBC it has all the cachet of an ITV thriller. A good cast, ludicrous two dimensional characters. Every line flat as a pancake. Every single trope you've ever seen is thrown into the mix. Every 'twist' is signposted like a motorway. You just know we'll be given one red herring after another until they need to install traffic lights in 'the woods'.