Second Sight

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+)

Second Sight is a basic British crime drama but with a twist -- the lead detective might be going blind. So the show is not just an anthology series, it has a running plot about the man's increasing sight issues that may or may not lead to loss of sight. This leads to a bifurcated show: the story of the possible blindness is extremely well done; it's touching, effective, but not overly maudlin. But the actual detective stories are not very good: the plot holes are completely insane, the detective work is almost silly; it often feels as if no one cared about the story lines as long as the larger theme was well-developed.

However, what really saves the show is Owen. He is absolutely terrific dealing with the possibility of eye sight loss: the show never wanders far from his dilemma. Why this man never became a major star is the most baffling mystery of all here.

This was supposedly a 2-part pilot yet there's no series. Because someone tanked it, apparently. Good call. The phrase Second Sight is widely known to refer to ESP or psychic ability yet more than half way through, there's still no indication he's having visions; in fact, so far, he's just doing the same thing over and over - drinking, sulking, having tantrums - with some detective work sprinkled in. If you want to feel like you might be watching Groundhog Day with the entertainment value removed, this is your show.

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!

My TV watching is confined almost exclusively to PBS and the British shows, which are usually the only things on TV worth watching. BUT... this particular show suffers from an excess of unintelligible dialogue that only added to the confusion of the muddled plot and story, the jerky handheld camera work, the appallingly choppy editing and uncertain direction. May I suggest to Rebecca Eaton that she add sub-titles to this show (which still has a few episodes to run) so that American viewers can truly enjoy rather than endure the British dialects and poor diction of the performers.