No need to tell you the set-up. You know enough already. It had me in from the first episode. I stuck with it. It maintains its interest rather than build upon it beyond Epidsode 2. It never gets better than that.
It's essentially a play. Almost all of the action takes place in the house. It could quite easily be a play.
Yet the issue is, when you limit something to this degree, the shock, thriller value can only travel so far, until you have to deliver.
It's smart and it traverses these boundaries very well. However it was Episode 6 that finally crossed the line of realism. You can hide reality various film making techniques, which is what has been done here, such as cutting away from certain scenes, distracting the audience when the truth should have been expanded upon and more, but in Ep 6, some events occur that do not generate a normal human reaction. This is not realistic. No spoilers but it took me out of it.
You can't sustain this idea for this long and continue to attempt to deliver suspense without either boring the viewers or going too far. Ep6 goes too far.
Younger viewers might swallow it up but astute, mature people will say, hang on, this is not a normal response to this situation. Most normal people in this situation will have resolved this quandary in Episode 2. A shame because it was quite engaging up until 6.
Worth watching for many reasons, but you do have to suspend your own normal emotional reactions in order to stay with it.
A good series but not a great one.
The acting is great. As you would expect perhaps, from such a stagey, theatrical type experience. For me, Rupert Grint is the standout.