The Pact

After an arrestingly twisty first few episodes - The Pact, a somewhat far-fetched crime drama set at a Welsh brewery - falls away in big chunks. What makes it worth a gander at all is the incredible cast which has no right to be this good - they all turn in great performances and to see Marsan and the brilliant Aneurin Barnard as a fractious father and son is glorious. Ade Edmondson is also there. If this had cut out a lot of the extraneous fat and red herringy side-plots and been three episodes rather than six it could've been really fascinating - but sadly it wasn't.

Having read the previous review I understand what they mean. However I'm currently on the third episode and quite enjoying it. More is happening behind the obvious and it's certainly worth sticking with. Good afternoon or an evening's viewing.

It started interesting with a promise of a juicy story with a nice cast. But quickly it became far too predictable with manufactured and unbelievable characters in a chain of annoyingly stupid choices.

I decided to watch the whole thing because some reviews here mentioned an unexpected twist in the end. There was no such thing.

A few points out of respect for the actors who had to work with a very crippled script and somehow got me through the episodes.. Except for the actress who played the main character Anne. A lot of dramatic staring in the distance with her mouth open and pausing far too long before producing her lines. In the end I had to look away every time she appeared.

While almost the entire rest of the cast did a far better job on it, I would especially like to see more of Jason Hughes.

Was really good to see his face again.

It's a decent enough set-up and reasonably well acted, but when the big twists came they were pretty ridiculous really.

It's the usual BBC PC affair of course. Would they make a drama where some guys take an unpopular woman boss into the woods, take her trousers down and photograph her as a "prank" and then make the people who did that the sympathetic heart of the story? I think not.

And are we expected to feel sorry for the murderer and accept that he/she had no choice and that it was all OK because the victim was a nasty piece of work?

Ultimately you're left thinking "all they had to do was to admit what happened and they'd have been fine".

Worth a watch but not amazing.

Contrary to the other reviewers, I was totally gripped. It does, I must agree, spend a little too much time on the initial 'joke' actions of the four main protagonists, but it is a delightfully situated story. No idiotic car chases or violence, just a nice plot and super cast of actors. I will certainly watch it again. Just wish there were more series like this :-)