Roadkill

Roadkill, a British semi-Drama series with only 4 episodes! Initially, I thought that it would be a compact, well-paced Drama pursuing to a second season whatever story it had. Well, after watching it, it falls hard on the face.

• (+) Great acting by Hugh Laurie as always. The near-only very good performance here. Worth mentioning are Helen McCrory and Millie Brady too.
• (+) Some touching and funny moments relating to the main character's personal life.
• (+) Nice filming and instructive cinematography.
• (-) Slow, bland and uninteresting screenplay and developments.
• (-) Awful music and piano playing in the background. More like a score suitable for a light-hearted but depressed comedy series.
• (+-) Some interesting twists and turns, having the weight of five ping-pong balls.

A series to forget, besides the marvelous acting of Hugh Laurie.

Thought I'd write something as I saw a rant about tropes of people of colour and "white men bad"- That person has issues and is projecting. There is a female PM (she's no Angel) but the majority of the politicians are depicted as white men, it's Britain so this should be expected. The people of colour are side characters and the majority are in prison, the other notable main person of colour is a morally bankrupt barrister and that's it so I'm not seeing all this good that PaulSpencer chose to see. I'm also confused as to what could have been the expectation considering they're supposed to represent the Tory party. Also, I didn't think of the main Hugh Laurie character as bad, he's just a politician, has done no worse if not less than our current politicians, but his character is very likeable. After the things our ministers have done they still manage to survive and carry on- This is no different. Despite his failings he still manages to make us like him and even root for him. The portrayals of some of the female characters are a bit 2D and questionable, something seems unfinished so I can understand people having issue there. As a Brit I didn't see the anti-right sentiment, I simply see snippets of what we have now with the Tory government and I don't think it would been much different if they were portraying a labour government - These are the political workings of our government.

Overall this isn't groundbreaking but it's a decent watch, it's entertaining. They could have done better with the material and stretched it out over a few more eps but for the talent alone I'd watch another series.

Ignore the ideological anti-BBC campaign here. This is well written and well performed political drama.

I have watched the 4 episodes of this show and I think it has some ups and downs, but as someone who is not British and mostly centralist in my own political views I felt I needed to give my thoughts in hopes of offering some fair perspective. Now in ep 1 I really felt the show was biased and anti-right wing, so for people who only saw ep 1, I see where you are coming from, but I did feel later episodes sort of shifted that narrative, Peter's personality is layered and his ambition isn't ideological, they do make an effort to show he's coming from a place of conviction not just greed or hate, he sees his actions as for the betterment of his country, the story isn't even about the ideology it's about how politics and scandals go together and I think the way the story concludes is quite effective. Is it amazing or earth shatter, No. Is it leaning a certain way politically, yes. Is it an entertaining 4 hours of content where you find yourself rooting for the "bad guys", absolutely! I wish everyone would give it a fair shake! but also acknowledge that people have different political views and it's ok if they like/dislike a show for the way it handles them, it's fine, but what's not fine is when those views completely cloud your judgment.

How wonderfully old fashioned this drama is, we haven't had a good Political drama for years, in 2020 we needed one.

It focuses on Peter Laurence, a Government Minister with Political ambition, and a checkered past. Everything in his private life seems to start spiralling out of control, at a time where opportunities for career development seem to be there.

It's good, it starts off fairly slow, but it gathers momentum as it progresses, you have expectations ahead of the finale, make your own minds up whether it succeeds or not.

Superbly acted throughout, Hugh Laurie is incredible, his ability to switch from conniving liar to Politician and man of the people is incredible. Other performances of note are Pippa Bennett-Warner, Pip Torrens and of course Helen McCrory.

I'm sure many will look at Helen McCrory's character Dawn, and be reminded of a former PM, possibly even two.

Beautifully produced, it's slick, sharp, with good music throughout.

The Politics, I say this as someone say in the centre, I'm not a Tory voter, and never have been, but.... There is a lot of political bias here, it's very anti Tory, we have Ministers wanting to sell of the NHS for one, Ministers in possession of I'll gotten gains, and we have the old boys network plotting against the female PM, it's not for me to comment, but come on, you need to be a little more impartial.

I would argue it's well worth seeing, but I know full well it will irritate some of a certain political persuasion 8/10.