The Inheritance

This started out as a fairly average family drama, father and three adult children. Larry Lamb played the role of the father, which wasn't promising as he's not a great actor. Then he dies and the family find out he has disinherited them and left his wife of 14 years his estate, which they didn't know he had. Surely a silly state of affairs. The actors who play the siblings have absolutely nothing in common with each other and no charisma.

The drama unfolds bringing in the current wife, the ex husband of one of the siblings who has loaned money to the siblings brother, the coroner and the police. Some suspicious characters are introduced into the mix and a highly unlikely scenario of circumstances arise. All happen without any humour and all lines are delivered in a deadpan serious manner. It is the most awful drama I have ever seen and one I will never watch again. I went from watching episode 1 to watching the last episode, thinking that even that was too long a watch.

This show was pretty entertaining. The ending was pretty standard for a suspense program of this type, except they threw in a little twist that definitely caught me off guard.

I love the people saying it isn't realistic. Is even one of Shakespeare's plays realistic? In Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest, a man is mistaken for a fictional spy, so he chases the KGB across America, narrowly averting several assassination attempts, until he finally catches up to them on top of Mt Rushmore? Is that even remotely realistic? Nonetheless, it's considered one of Hollywood's greatest films.

Surprising as this may be, fiction is typically by it's very definition, fictional.

The story was pretty suspenseful, and the ending was way better than most shows like this. Half the time they build up all kinds of tension and then the ending is a huge let down. Because of the unexpected twist at the end, I definitely thought the big finish was fairly satisfying.

The acting was definitely convincing. I totally believed each of these characters was a real person struggling with some serious real-life distress. To be honest, most of the suspense came from the anxiety caused by waiting for the other shoe to drop in their personal lives.

Don't let the negative reviews turn you off or skew your perspective while watching this.

I'm a fan of 4 part dramas, enjoy them more than the longer running ones which really should be compacted into less episodes. So with that in mind The Inheritance definitely scores in my estimation as the storyline didn't drag. With all murder mysteries everyone is given a motive and one by one the most obvious suspects are eliminated. That's where it comes a little undone as the final reveal seemed a bit weak in the motivation department. On the plus side full praise must go to James Collier. He's terrific in this and very strong leading man material so I hope he gets more roles as a result. I'd love to see him carry an entire series on his own.

The first episode of this drama made me want to see more. In the next couple of episodes you could feel the screws tightening down on the three siblings problems and that was watchable drama. Otherwise it became a predicatable wandering plot with good moments few and far between.

Some good characters, some bad. Unfortunately despite some decent actors in the parts the siblings were just gormless bimblers easily conned and clearly no idea what was going on around them in the world let along their immediate bubble.

Some utterly unbelievable moments and wasted talents of great actors such as Kevin Whately. Others such as "perfect Pete" were simply irritating.

The final nail in the coffin lid was the terrible final episode, beaten only in the really stakes by line of duty. OK there was a conclusion building wise and the baddies got locked up ( very cheesey) but otherwise nothing at all concluded and no resolution for what had been torturing the siblings.

In fact it was that poor a ending I wasn't even sure it was the final episode lol.

I liked the opening device with the family introductions done via a video taken at a family Xmas party by the soon to die Larry Lamb.

This is an easy watch all round that isn't going to win any awards but does what it says on the tin. If you're looking for a pacey little family thriller full of twists and turns and dirty hidden secrets give it a twirl.

I couldn't quite work where it was set, seemed to be 'generic up north' with a patchwork of regional accents.

Original and ground-breaking no, a brilliant cast no, a bit soapy yes, but it had some good hooks and it lured me in. Worth a look if you enjoy family dramas.