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.

This show is an extremely well observed, nuanced portrayal of someone who feels lost and is seeking a different way of life. Suffocated by her choices, Claire (played by the exceptionally talented Rebecca Hall) begins hearing a sound she can't escape while living a life defined by her role as a teacher and mother.

The 'hum' leads her down a dark path, away from those she loves to find connection elsewhere, amongst other lost people struggling to cope in mainstream society. All in all I found this a very poignant study that brings up questions around mental illness, reality, convention and the drive that makes someone abandon those they love.

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.

Some lovely outfits. Everything is a close up to magnify the main actresses' beauty. Can't say much more really.i wanted to like it but found the acting irritating let alone the characters. Puts you off yoga, humous, flat white's and vintage dresses. I'm on the last episode now and writing this review with one eye on the telly and one on my phone, just goes to show how some dramas can be spellbinding and then there's this one which concentrates neurotic people. I've started watching The Long Shadow. I'm really enjoying it and it ticks all of my boxes. This drama is mainly about crying and hyperventilating x.

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.