State of Mind

The outcome, unexpected. Good turn of events. Pretty well done.

I watched this with my family and the quality strikes you from the first. It avoids the clichés of other TV dramas on the whole. The acting of Niamh Cusack and Dominic Mafham was truly believable. Hugh Mitchell as the son was just right. The overt plot was rather predictable. A question of whether to believe the story of a killer. Is he ill or is he a murderer? Of course, like all serious drama, this was just a vehicle for the real story of loss, betrayal and redemption. The harrowing scenes of betrayal are bound to strike a chord with any sensitive person. They are almost too unbearable to watch. Buy it. You won't be disappointed.

Subpar ladies's channel soap opera disguised as a suspense thriller. The key dramatic features are zoom shots for implying suspense and foreshadowing, and the closeup knowing glance between any two random actors in a scene, during exposition by a third character. That's it, these tricks are repeated over and over. The actors all conventionally attracive according to their role, their delivery style flips from wooden to torrid randomly. Oh, a few actors are also able to throw a smirk on top of the knowing look. The furtive glance may eventually raise its countenance at some point, but I won't be watching to confirm my suspicions, at least one of the thespians may one time have attended the James Woods School of Acting.

It's all you ever wanted in something to clean house to and less, an unintended festival of campy snark.

"I thought I'd be locked away in a padded cell and they'd throw away the key" (Thus is a paraphrased snatch of dialogue from "State of Mind".

One wonders in what tangled forest Paula Milne and her co-writer found the magic mushrooms they must have eaten, to create this feeble "whodunnit" and bring such rubbish to our screens. A padded cell should indeed be left available.

Niamh Cusack did her best, (as did the other actors) but surely her talent deserves a better vehicle than this. The height of absurdity has been reached, and this particular "State of Mind" is best buried and forgotten, and certainly not just "placed in a box and locked away in a drawer".

Typical made-for-TV Thriller in the mode of "Cracker" but doesn't really deliver. The plot could have been told in a good episode of "The Bill". Niamh Cusack kept trying to be Amanda Burton in "Silent Witness" which was fairly irritating. Ending too predictable.