User reviews

In spite of what a lot of other people say, I thought it was excellently made with a lot of twists & turns. It's about a widow, Kate, who thinks she sees her husband in a clip on the news who has been reported dead for 3 yrs but body never found. She goes on a quest to see if he is possibly alive & exactly what happened. Nothing is what it seems, her life is put in danger along w/friends who help in her quest for the truth. I figured out several conspiracies but the show keep me intrigued as you discover the corrupt agendas of the govt & people involved as the story plays out. You also see the deplorable side of the Congo rebels or milita killing innocents while they kidnap the children training them to be killers for their cause or just be the hired help. It's a suspenseful journey for truth & justice not just for the widow but for the oppressed!

This story started off very well and can certainly be called a thriller, lots of intrigue and mystery. The scenery in the DRC is a true reflection of what the place really looks like, as well as the behavior of its notorious corrupted leaders, militia and elite citizens.

One can imagine truth in this story, but fortunately it is a fabricated tale and enjoyable to binge watch. Kate Beckinsale's performance was admirable, but the end plot less so.

Life in the DRC is not pleasant but many happenings seen in this series is based on fact.

Three years after her husband disappeared due to a plane crash in Congo, his 'widow' discovers faint traces that he may still be alive. She flies down to Africa and starts an investigation that may be clumsy (she does not even speak French), but her stubbornness takes her through in one piece somehow. What she finds is however not what she expected, and to unknown enemies, her investigation about the plane crash is not welcome...

Well entertaining TV series, at 8 episodes neither too short to develop a certain complexity and interesting characters, nor too long to maintain suspense. I watched it in only three days because I was eager to find out how it continues, a very good sign. Familiar faces among the actors include Charles Dance ('Game of Thrones'), Alex Kingston ('Doctor Who') and of course Kate Beckinsale ('Underworld').

First off, yes, Kate Beckinsale's Botoxed lips are noticeable but not all that distracting. If you knew what she look like without them (lovely), then you wonder "WHY?". If not, it's not a big deal. I loved the premise, the scenery is lovely, the supporting performances pretty strong, and the plot engaging enough. I like a couple of the sub-plots involving sympathetic (if complex) secondary characters. They don't seem extraneous to me, just a welcome distraction. There is enough tension to keep me worried....but never for too long. Unfortunately, she takes risks without seeming to break a sweat that just stretch credulity too much. She puts others in danger, which is one of my major pet peeves with action shows or those involving revenge and single-minded quests. I think Beckinsale's acting is pretty good, but her character is underdeveloped in a lot of ways. She is supposed to be psychologically damaged and complex and twisted but she never seems multi-dimensional enough to make it work. Still, it's decent watch. I'm not sure they need another season though.

I really can't understand why people got hung up on her appearance. First of all she still looks beautiful. Secondly it is an excellent show with a lot of beautiful imagery. I definitely do think it flips and flops back-and-forth way too much regarding the time sequences. I also think that it leaves a lot of "hanging chads" . Several doors get opened that never get answered. This is a definite weakness of the show. Yet it does involve you in the characters lives and definitely holds your interest. I will not spew out all the plot details. My overriding thought and sentiment is that it is a show worth watching with a good performances and beautiful scenery. Give it a shot.

As with many of the other reviewers. I was completely enthralled from episode 1 until the end of 6. Then episode 7 starts and I immediately began to feel the let down. By the time episode 8 hits I'm left asking myself "really is this it"? This show had so much potential but it sputtered at the end.

So a few thoughts to this show:

camera and director do many many things very right here. first of all: the show's pace. The tale follows a certain pace that you don't find often especially on TV. It's focus is more of a psychological one instead of hitting you in the face with action yet it always keeps a steady tension that drawns you to the story. It doesn't work with changes like shows that would build up a tension, release full blown action for the sake of it and then slows down to give you a contrast. This show keeps the pace for all but the last episode. Scenes that show a lot of action aren't hectic, scenes that show investigating, or characters thinking don't slow down boringly; yet the whole thing doesn't feel mushy - because of the way the story is told -

The story isn't told linear. You find multiple temporal levels. There's a now, there's a then and there's a before then. And even within the same time period the story doesn't always follow the course of time. Some people may find this annoying, I absolutely dig it. Of course it requires some attention and certainly isn't light fare. In addition, while the show hints you at details it doesn't explain those details right away. Sometimes you have to wait an episode or two to get shown the scene missing in the episode you're watching. Jumps to scenes from the past create a tessellation of the background information to understand what's really going on and why everything in the now is like it is. But it's only offered in pieces and creates an analogy to Beckinsale's character - as she collects bit per bit, so does the viewer.

Due to this style your perception of the characters change. People who seem like good people at the time may not seem as good while you suddenly feel a certain empathy with people that you deemed being bad after you're fed some background. These kind of twists are very well made. They don't try to sell you black for white by a completely unbelievable explanation, they just show that life is often not black nor white; we're all broken and in the end we all got our reasons. Of course this being a mini-series you can't expect a character development/assessment on the scope of The Sopranos or The Wire but with what little time they have they do an outstanding job. As for characters' actions it was good to see believable actions for a change. Everyone's acting within their logical and ethical limits and you don't have for example Kate Beckinsale running around like a madman with a shotgun to seek justice.

The camera work is in my opinion very good. The angles, the colours, the composition is just very harmonic and offers good immersion. The cut isn't too fast and doesn't distract from what's happening. This of course puts greater pressure on the actors and the script to transport the story to the viewer. Now Kate Beckinsale with utmost certainty isn't the greatest actress of the 21st century but must say, she did a really solid job and I was pleasantly surprised. The other actors also performed reasonably well. As I see reviews here criticizing the acting in this show I really wonder what they're used to because I generally have seen a lot worse performances. As for the mediocre/bad: I really disliked the last episode. It breaks with everything I've so far liked. It suddenly changes the pace, it skips the details and backgrounds and presents you with what seems to be an ending to fit the research of the studio as to how to appeal to the biggest audience - unfortunately not necessarily the audience that will watch all other episodes before. They should have probably gone with a different ending, but even going with this one it should have been either turned it into a 12-episode piece giving the events time to unfold instead of rushing through it in the last episode or just turned it into a written epilogue telling you the keypoints of what's happening in 5 sentences to the sound of violins.

Also when you got the whole story in front of you in the end there's slight disappointment since it's rather simple really and there are a lot of potentials or rather would have been that unfortunately can't be tapped due to the ending. There would have been enough material for a second season or a decent spin-off but unfortunately this has been blown.

Overall I can only say, go and watch it. You might want to go through it fast as I think it's not really meant to watch with lengthy interruptions. When you're looking for some light-hearted entertainment to shut your mind off to, this is probably not the show for you. Otherwise you're in for a treat.

What could have been an incredible mystery, political conspiracy film left me asking "what was the point of that?" by the end of episode 7. If you were shocked by any of the "twists" places in the story you should broaden your horizons a bit more. The story had so much potential and sadly fell incredibly short. The best part of the show is Kate Beckinse's amazing hair which magically stays perfectly curled even while walking through a jungle for days. It was truly my favorite part of the show.

Good story with interesting and unpredictable twists, well made, good casting, intriguing and dense plot with diverse parameters. Fun to watch and quite revealing of the local climate. A different leading lady would have been a better choice, one who can actually have facial expressions so can reflect the depth of the character's nuances better...

Watched it straight through while home sick with a virus going around. The Widow is not great, but is good and very enjoyable. I liked the actors and their characters, the themes about what is happening to the people of Africa due to greed, and the pacing. However, there are plot holes in places, and the ending seems rushed. And this is Africa but no wildlife? Bizarre. Still, the series was good company for a sick watcher and helped me get through.

This starts off quite strong and you may feel differently, but Kate Beckinsale always gets a 10 out of 10 or whatever the highest score is. But after that strong beginning and all the mysteries that are being thrown at you ... it starts to wear off. The hunt is being kept interesting nevertheless, with intercutting, either the past or other seemingly random events.

Interesting characters and really good actors (Charles Dance in a welcome change of pace) help the show. But they can't help it over the long run - and that long run is only 8 episodes. But once we get what we were looking for (if you can call it that), the show feels like a dead stop. Yes there is more to explore, yes there is the typical return of a character you didn't expect to see again, just for that character to become super evil and ... there is so much wrong here, that it I wonder how they messed this up in just one short season.

The last episode may have a couple of highlights (depending on your moral compass), but overall the show is not able to excite you or rather hold any excitement for a long period of time ...

Pretty good tale, I watched it all the way through and found some of the twists and turns to be clever and compelling. That said, I feel like the writers relied way too heavily on the tired old mechanism of unnecessarily sending people off on their own into dangerous situations when there's no good reason to do so, just so something bad can happen... bleah, pure lazyness. I liked this okay but too many of those moments when you know something will go wrong, and it does.

I would class The Widow as very good overall. There's always a risk with eight part dramas that you got a flat lull in the middle, this one doesn't suffer from that, it's dramatic and entertaining the whole way through, until the final episode, which isn't great.

Superb acting throughout, everyone is excellent. Beckinsale does a great job, I just wish they'd given her a better hair extension, which doesn't alter with fights, chases, or anything. Ólafur Darri Ólafsson and Shalom Nyandiko are both superb throughout.

It has some terrifying moments of realism, the militia and child involvement the main ones, but there are times when you feel the need to suspend belief.

Very watchable, but who was Owen?

Really good actors but c'mon she goes to Congo, she defeats all bad guys, solved a case of an airplane crash, save a child and comes back at home without a scratch. Nothing more?

Kaye Beckinsale has never been a phenomenal actor. And her weirdly smooth forehead doesn't help her to emote, here. (People in their mid-forties have horizontal lines on their forehead when they raise their eyebrows, it's just how we're built.)

But the ravages of time and of botox notwithstanding, this is a thoroughly enjoyable mystery miniseries. It has some shakey writing in a few places, some eye rollingly cliche conversations, but the overall plot remains engaging throughout, and the pacing is really well done.

It's not an explosive action-filled tale, but neither is it boring or sedate. By the end I was happy I'd spent the time.

This is clever stuff - exposing corruption and shady dealings in the Congo with a script that deftly provides plausible reasons for why characters are drawn into such murky depths. It continuously wrong foots you and never lets go of a pace with often surprising and shocking turns that deal with the big issues of life - trust, love, betrayal, ethical dilemmas, politics - without ever getting ponderous. Highly recommend - and good luck trying to stop watching once you've started!

I started watching this, wanted to stop - but hung in there because I wanted to know what happened. Huge mistake. Africa is interesting, but this painful acting coupled with a completely unbelievable (borderline nonsensical) underlying story that drags on and on and on. I wish I could undo watching this.

The series takes a while to pull you in, but overall it is a tense plot with surprises and finely woven threads as to side characters. The topic itself, made into a series (no US series!) is absolutely zeitgeist.

For a start, it was definitely not shot in DRC. They drive on the other side of the road.

Kate Beckinsale still looks like a vampire even though she doesn't embody one this time. Such a shame. Beautiful woman.

The plot is quite different from other tv shows, that's quite nice. But not as addicitve as it could be. The acting in general is fine, in my opinion the side actors acting is much better than of the main characters. There's just not much emotion and because of that the dialogues are a bit dull sometimes. Kate Beckinsale and Charles Dance are so tough all the time, even though a lot of people a dying for nothing. And then the end is quite fast.

Not a must watch, but definitely a can watch.