The Owl Service

Strange that reviewers' opinion about this series is split, in that there is very little of merit in here at all, beyond Edwin Richfield's trademark twitchiness. It is extremely slow, stretched to breaking point across four hours. The three juvenile leads are extraordinarily inept and equally thumpable (well, maybe Roger is marginally worse than the others). Eerie moments are not followed up, so their effects dissipate. Mysteries are raised and never resolved. Bafflingly, the character Margaret, who is fairly crucial, is never shown; even the DVD notes fail to explain why. Some scenes have to go to enormous lengths to work around her absence; even a cardboard cut-out in silhouette would have been preferable. It is not stylish; the camera is generally static and the editing plodding. And the resolution, when it comes, resolves very little, choosing instead to wrap it all up in sci-fi gobbledegook.

And yet somehow it has become a cult classic. Go figure.