The Suspicions of Mr Whicher: Beyond the Pale

Extremely predictable. Watch any other TV movie and it ends up the same.

I accept the points that other reviewers have made about there being much less light indoors and at night in Victorian England than there is nowadays. I'm all for authenticity. But even allowing for this, most of the scenes were lit so darkly that it was very difficult to tell what was going on. This episode (unlike the other other ones in the series) took "moody and atmospheric and authentic" way too far. We had indoor or night-time scenes in episode 1.2 "The Murder in Angel Lane" (which I've just watched, so I can make a fair comparison), but they were nowhere near as dingy: it was at least possible to see what was happening and which characters were present. And how ever dark and gloomy Victorian interiors and night-times may have been, that does not explain why the day-time scenes were also very dark - unless they were set during a solar eclipse ;-)

Whicher is hired by a powerful political figure, to look into threats made to his son by a man he met in India.

I enjoyed it, well, what I could see of it anyway, I wondered if my set was on the blink, as I could hardly see or make anything out, cut to an external, daytime shot, and normality, there's a distinction between subtle lighting, and needing candles around the TV set.

It's an interesting mystery, I really did like the story, and what I could see of the production values, it looks wonderfully well made, with terrific sets and costumes.

I seriously miss Tim Piggot Smith, what a terrific actor he was, he put in a wonderfully whiskered performance, Nancy Carroll was great too, Paddy Considine stole it with another awesome performance.

It is good, but the lighting is unforgivable, it deserves a higher score, but for me it's worthy of a 7/10..... It's better than that.

Strong acting and an impressive atmosphere are the hallmarks of "Beyond the Pale," from the Mr. Whicher series.

In this episode, Whicher is hired by a government official (Nicholas Jones) whose son is being threatened. The son, Charles (John Heffernan) and his family lived in India for 12 years. He has seen the man who is after him, and he fears for his wife and children. His father asks Whicher to find the man - it all must be dealt with discreetly, as careers are at stake.

Good episode though somewhat easy to figure out. It's notable for the obvious racism toward people from India.

Paddy Considine is excellent as Mr. Whicher, and I liked the chemistry between him and his landlady (Nancy Carroll).

Poor lighting is one thing, the absence of it is quite another. It was an effort to watch this show. There were scenes in this episode which I could not see at all. I had watched a previous episode which was not nearly this dark. I watched till the end because I do like the series.