Steeltown Murders

I recently watched Steeltown Murders, the latest crime drama to hit our screens, and I have to say, I was hooked from the start. The plot immediately drew me in with its mysterious killings and interconnected web of secrets in a small, industrial town. The stellar cast, led by Sion Alun Davies, Steffan Rhodri, and Aneurin Barnard, delivered captivating performances that made the characters feel authentic. I appreciated how the show tackled important issues such as corruption, poverty, and neglecting marginalised communities, although, at times, the execution felt heavy-handed. The gloomy atmosphere of the town was captured perfectly through the cinematography and production design. However, the series' pacing was a drawback, with some episodes lacking the necessary momentum to maintain my interest. Despite its flaws, the emotional depth explored in Steeltown Murders resonated with me, leaving me with a lingering melancholy. Overall, this series is worth a watch for fans of the genre.

The latest in a number of TV recreations of recent, infamous real-life crimes, this four-part BBC series centred on the brutal rape and murder of three 16-year-old girls in the space of a couple of months in neighbouring Neath and Port Talbot in Wales, in 1973. Despite a concerted police investigation at the time, the killer was never apprehended and the case went cold for decades. However, with the discovery and implementation of DNA profiling in police procedures, one detective from the original search, with the help of two able and willing colleagues, reopened the case in the hope of finally solving the murders and in the process obtain some degree of closure for the victims' families as well as dispersing the suspicions about other innocent men in the community at the time suspected of the crimes.

The programme used parallel timelines, switching between the 1973 and early 2000's of each manhunt and in the absence of the expensive new-fangled de-ageing technology, chose to employ pairs of different actors for the main characters with a seeming resemblance, some more credible than others, to tell the tragic and horrific story through to its conclusion. Heading the cast as lead detective Paul Bethell was Philip Glenister, again stepping back in time to play a cop, only this time of course, unlike in "Life On Mars" and "Ashes To Ashes" his character wasn't fictional. He's well supported by his two dogged colleagues played by Steffan Rhodri and Gareth John Bale, as the three of them commandeer an old, dingy out-of-use police station to trawl through piles and piles of written evidence (this of course was in the days before computers and on-line record-keeping) to eventually take the case forward some 30 years after the crimes had first been committed.

Once I got the hang of the unannounced and untitled time-switches, it was easy to get involved in the grim events portrayed. I liked how the director deliberately created the environs of the 70's in particular, where you could almost smell as well as feel the fug of smoke permeating the scenes. It was a nice touch to have any background pop music heard in the background performed by Welsh acts like Badfinger and The Stereophonics. The casting and ensemble acting was generally good throughout and although it wasn't a surprise to see Keith Allen as a suspect, this time at least he met a different fate to his usual.

Again though, I'm pretty certain that hidden away in the legend that composite characters and fictional scenes had been created for dramatic purposes, I think I can say with certainty however that at least three of the leading characters were imagined and inserted for reasons of diversity, a practice of which I'm generally in favour, but not when treating real-life events like this, especially if in living memory.

I also felt the series could have been condensed into three rather than four episodes, the final episode in particular really dragging out the sense of sympathetic guilt of subsidiary characters as well as the exhumation of the prime suspect.

I have to say that this wasn't a case I remembered at all from when the original events first occurred. One can certainly be grateful for modern day devices like CC TV, DNA and mobile phone technology aiding the police in their work but what came across most here was the dogged determination of committed coppers doing their duty to the victims and their families to solve cold-cases even if sometimes the perpetrator doesn't always get their rightful comeuppance in their lifetime.

An excellent production. Truly captures the essence of the eras portrayed and most importantly put the eras into contextz a seemingly overlooked aspect recenty. I really enjoyed this and thought that the program was excellently cast. The filming tone is superb. A very good insight into not only the Police but also the early use of DNA. Well done to all involved. The whole series had a good pace to it and shows the stress that these kind of events can have on not only the victims family but everyone associated with the incident and this is graphically shown here, better than any other program I can recall.

A very confusing beginning. Where music is often used to establish a time frame for a drama, the two songs used at the beginning of this one were from 1970. So I thought it was 1970, but then there was one from 1973. The latter being the correct one chronologically to map on to the events that unfolded.

But hang on, this was a flashback, so what year was the new investigative work taking place. It took a while, but I think it was 2003.

So, the start of the drama was very muddled, especially character wise.

Overall I thought it was one episode too long. The third part particularly dragged and the final couple of episodes could have been condensed into one.

Premise: Twenty-first century technological advances help detectives with a cold murder case from 1973.

Geraldine Hughes and Pauline Floyd both left the Top Rank nightclub in Swansea without ever making it home.

Their bodies were discovered later in Llandarcy. Dubbed the case of the "Saturday Night Strangler", it became the first documented case of a serial killer in Wales.

If it hadn't been for the fact it was based on real events it would have seem cliched; young detective should be seen and not heard and not have anything to offer the operation being run by superiors who are seriously flawed policing wise.

A strong cast, particularly Philip Glenister, made this watchable.

The Steeltown Murders is four-part drama based on real life events that took part in 1973 and 2002 beginning with the series of murders that occurred in the South Wales area. Generally, the TV drama has some time travelling features about that frequently takes us back to the beginning of the basic side of the somewhat painstaking and exhaustive investigation of the murders and then forward to DNA developments to identify the suspect. For those whom are unfamiliar with this case, it might be hard to follow at times as it frequently time travels back and forth but nevertheless it's very gripping, bleak and gritty.