momavs

Code of silence.

ITV can be hit or miss with its dramas but this one's a hit.

We really enjoyed Code of Silence as it was a bit different for mainstream TV. The story is good enough to justify the show and even though it has more than its fair share of 'aye right' moments it doesn't detract from the overall enjoyment. The show is very well paced and there's no fillers like there are on Netflix.

Rose Ayling-Ellis holds the whole thing together brilliantly. She was absolutely convincing in her role as Alison. She's very likeable even though her character never does a thing she's told. Keiron Moore is also very convincing as Liam. All the main cast are good like Charlotte Ritchie and Andrew Buchan and all are convincing with only the odd one letting the side down. Most of the eff bombs are unnecessary and feel unnatural in places. We don't need them and British TV should not be influenced by the vulgarity plaguing US TV.

We watched on ITVX with the subtitles on even though neither of us are deaf or hard of hearing.

I hope there's a second series of this because we liked it.

The language is the first thing you notice about Dept effing c. It's shocking and makes the show a chore to watch. There are times when it's so out of place it feels like the writer has gone back through the script and inserted the eff word in all it's variations anywhere and everywhere he could without reason. People don't talk like this but everyone does in Dept effing c. It would embarrass workies oan a buildin' site. Shows like this have brought language like this to the fore and it's now entering mainstream TV series and it feels like it's time to start pushing back on it. This 9 episode drama would be down to 8 if the profanities were cut out. The second language point is that the Scots actors have clearly been to told to pronounce things as clearly as possible so non-Scots can understand them better and Netflic can sell Dept effing c to as wide an audience as possible. The result is that most of them sound very artificial and there are only a few moments when people are speaking naturally and these points stand out and they shouldn't. The third point about language is that it's clearly not written by a Scot but a Scott (pun intended) because there are many American terms that Scots don't use that are passed off as normal. Netflix claims this is 'sharp dialogue I disagree.

Product placement is there too with Ford getting a fair few mentions and even a profanity was used in place of the 'focus' you can guess what that is and McDonalds got a few too.

The characters are detestable. Matt Goode character is the worst of the lot. Matt reportedly said he thought it was hilarious but there's not a laugh in it. There wasn't a decent character in there until Akram comes along and noticeably there isn't one single profanity from his mouth. Netflix should give Akram his own series he's better than the lot here and I'd watch that.

Overall the acting is bad, seriously bad. Yes there's a few good actors in there but most are amateurs. The sets are terrible and wouldn't look out of place on Dr Who.

The story, the investigation, doesn't start until e4 so I'd miss the ones beforehand. Once it does start you realise that there's a decent story in here somewhere and hope it's worth your perseverance. It's not but it makes it a bit more bearable. From this point on it does slowly begin to pick up pace but not as much as I'd have liked.

I wouldn't recommend you watch Dept Q effing c at all and watch the original Danish series which is said to be better.

If there's another series I won't be watching.

Walter presents on 4 is showing some great TV on catch up and this is one of the best. Spiral of Lies is a six-part crime drama that's addictive from the very start. The opening sequence has more packed into a few minutes than some shows do in an entire episode. Somehow Spiral of Lies manages to keep that pace up for six full episodes but it seems perfectly timed and never drawn out like so many other shows. The cast are superb and deliver totally convincing performances. Interestingly there are no goodies or perfect people in this and the characters are all flawed which adds to the appeal. There's never a dull moment. Unusually for me I even noticed how I liked the editing.

The French made this story very believable with only a few 'aye right' moments which were not directly related to the story so not worthy of mention. The ending, which can so often be a let down in shows like this, delivers the goods and doesn't descend into silliness as so often happens with these shows. I haven't ruled out watching it again.

The quality of this French TV show is exceptional and thanks to Walter Presents and Channel 4 we can all watch it. We binged watched it in a few evenings. We find ourselves making greater use of this service and watching non-English speaking shows and we are learning that so many of them are far far better than what we are seeing from our own channels. Foreign language TV is steadily becoming our first choice.