The Listeners

English teacher Claire starts to hear a humming noise, a sound that nobody else can hear. The hum starts to affect her life, she finds some comfort when a student, Kyle, also hears the same noise, the pair explore the noise, and are drawn to a group.

I've heaped praise on the drama output of both ITV and The BBC during 2024, both organisations have put out some wonderful content. This however, this is the low point, a total dud.

Excruciatingly slow to start, it should have been half the running time, the only time the series offers anything, is in the third episode, which I enjoyed. Episode four is truly one of the most painfully, terrible things I've ever watched, there are no words for how awful it is.

We get such a feeble explanation, we don't even get to glimpse the sound, we should have been given the hum very early on, it made it impossible to empathise with Claire. There's weird, and then there's plain old incomprehensible, and this I'm afraid is that, it leaves the viewer cold.

It's diversity on steroids, as you'd expect, The BBC's world view on things continues to patronise.

Some decent performances however, Amr Waked stands out, the guy has some real presence.

Avoid.

4/10.

It's hard to put this show into words. It doesn't seem to know what it wants to be, part psychological drama, part sci-fi, part cult thriller, yet no real substance at all.

The acting has been criticised on other reviews, but I don't feel the acting is the problem. It's everything else. It's a real "meh" progrramme that is just disjointed, flat and bland. I really don't get what it was trying to do. There is potential in the concept which is interesting, they could have made a good sci-fi show, or an apocalyptic type show, or they could have just focused on the cult angle and made a good thriller there. Yet you don't feel like you get to the bottom of any of that.

Somehow I've made it through all four episodes just to try and see what in the world was actually going on, and it really was not worth bothering with. I would rather have spent the 3 hours waiting for a train.

Having read the synopsis for this before starting to watch it I thought this would be really interesting. The overall rating for this was around 5/10, so it had very mixed reviews.

The idea for the story is good. The story starts off quite well and had potential. Unfortunately it just got really weird and creepy.

This is ok to have on in the background but not to waste four hours of your life.

The story had too many plot holes and just got more irritating the more you watched.

Overall it's a poor storyline with poor script, dialogue and acting.

Such a shame because this story could have been so much better. A wasted opportunity.

While there's nothing particularly deep here, there are some strong and very measured performances. It did make me think about things as I was watching it and it certainly wasn't predictable. The conclusion was also reasonably satisfying.

Rebecca Hall was very believable as Claire. I also particularly liked the performance of Amr Waked as Omar.

Without giving any spoilers, I think it is possible to say this is "about" people who are suffering (hearing the "hum" that most cannot) and trying to find someone who can help them. It strikes me it is also "about" the way the brain can construct both helpful and unhelpful explanations.

Well worth a watch, so long as you're not looking for anything deep and meaningful. (I enjoyed this enough to binge watch it last night.)

Short series about a woman who starts hearing a sound no one else around her appears to be able to hear, and how it deeply affects her public and personal life - shifting her allegiances and tearing holes in her reality.

Rebecca Hall puts in a great performance, and there are some nice details, too - both in cinematography and not least the sound design.

I was mainly drawn to The Listeners by its title and theme, and while the storyline doesn't always evolve in a pleasant way, I did find it interesting in relation to subjective experiences of life and the impact they can have on our relationships to others - both in terms of closeness and alienation.

The eerie aspect is to do with the fact that hearing is subjective - no one essentially experiences the world in the same way - and how this opens up questions around empathy, trust, understanding, support, exploitation, and mental health.