Second Sight

Clive Owen stars as a police detective losing his sight in "Second Sight," a 1999 TV series.

Like Benedict Cumberbatch, Clive Owen first found popularity as a television actor. In Second Sight, he plays DCI Ross Tanner, a man who discovers he has a rare eye disease which may go into remission, stay the way it is, or ultimately he will go blind. The disease also gives him the ability to pick up when something is wrong in an interrogation, and he suffers from hallucinations.

He's terrified of his superiors and people working under him to find out the truth, so he enlists the help of his second in command, DI Catherine Tully (Claire Skinner).

Along the way Tanner learns to use his other senses to help his detecting, realizing that not every clue is visual.

Excellent series with wonderful acting by the very hunky Owen. I'd crawl to see him in anything. The subplot is about Tanner's relationship with his ex-wife and son.

Loved the story lines and wish this series lasted longer.

I have to take issue with one of the remarks here. Someone was angry that subtitles were suggested and thought it was awful.

I've been to England several times, I've seen so many mysteries and detective stories and movies from England it's not funny. But now I'm partially deaf. Also, the British idea of sound is to do it very naturally - it's really not filtered the way U.S. sound is. So some of those dialects can be hard to understand.

I used earphones with this, which I suggest for this very excellent series because it has no subtitles.

I loved Inspector Lynley, but the subtitles didn't show up on the disks and I missed probably 40%. Now that it's on streaming on Netflix, I plan to go back and see it. Sorry but this is reality. People love this stuff and it's too hard to hear and/or understand without some help.

Try having some understanding of an aging population and your fellow man.

I watched this on Prime (with subtitles) but spent most of my time forwarding it by 10 seconds at a time. I didn't even last 10 minutes with it. Why? Refer to the title of the review.

Clive Owen brings his almost complete absence of charisma and scant repertoire of nuances to "Second Sight" as a detective who may or may not be losing his sight depending on who you believe; host Diana Rigg or the doctor characters. A much too pat and uninspired Brit detective series about a workaholic divorced sleuth with personal issues, DCI Tanner (Owen), "Second Sight" is full of nonsequiturs, plot holes, and just plain shoddy work. Owen does the usual connecting of dots expected of mysteries while maintaining the pitiful I've-been-screwed-by-life attitude you would expect of a terminal cancer patient not one whose just may be going blind and especially not one who sees perfectly when required of the plot and otherwise when not. All the while, Tanner has what Rigg describes as a "torrid" affair with his sidekick which is little more than a few seconds in the sack and sees visions (the second sight thing) which are rationalized by some mumbo-jumbo about his medical condition. Pale in comparison with the Brit "Cracker" series, "Second Sight" is little more than par fodder for TV junkies. I gave up on it with about 10 minutes to go in the 2nd DVD. (C+)

Another Great UK Crime Drama . . . With a twist. A very interesting twist!

A young Clive Owens plays has DCI Ross Tanner, a cop who discovers that he going blind. Add to that a nasty murder case and a new DI as his deputy . . .

. . . A good basis for a story. Clive Owen makes it work so well, Claire Skinner manages to keep up and the always dependable Stuart Wilson (and his Crossworlds hat) is excellent as usual. The music harkens back to the 50s, 60s, 70s detective shows of my youth and almost makes it feel like a period piece.

I love British crime shows (Midsomer Murders, The Last Detective, Endeavour, etc.). I'm slotting this one into the rotation!

Second site did not disappoint. I felt the realism in the t. V series but also the character was allowed to have the feelings of anger at his position. But yet he continues to fight, despite he's going blind. I do wish the character that was played by detective Tully would have stayed in the series a little longer. I thought they made a good pair. I like the way Second Sight appeared as a tiny miniseries. To where two or three episodes may have focused on one of the major plot lines. I feel like that made the show more realistic instead of just doing one episode with one plot and then moving on, and on.