Disappointing comeback for period drama
It’s been two years since full-length Victorian drama The Suspicions of Mr Whicher hit ITV screens, two years in which the likes of Downton Abbey and many other period dramas since have managed to become utterly dominant on British TV screens. However there was a lot of love for the Paddy Considine-starring tale in 2011, so much so that there was plenty of anticipation surrounding its return to ITV screens over the weekend.
Two years on sees Considine’s character Whicher no longer a police man, as he was the first time out. Nevertheless, he takes on of Susan Spencer (played by Olivia Colman) who is looking for her 16 year-old daughter who’s gone missing. Turns out she’s dead, turning the whole thing into a Victoria whodunit? Describing Whicher as “ a bit of a bore, more plodding than the actual plod,” The Guardian are less enamoured with the comeback, writing: ”You want a detective to have a bit of swagger or eccentricity about him, don't you? A drug habit, an ego at least? Or perhaps that's cliched, and this more realistic – Whicher is based on a real person, after all.” Whicher was one of the original members of the Scotland Yard detective branch in the 1800’s.
The Telegraph weren’t too impressed either, saying that the plot became messy. “By the end there was so much murk and muddle all I could figure out was that the niece had been killed by her father, who didn’t know she was his daughter, for reasons lost forever in the pea-souper of a plot. I’m still baffled, as I write” they wrote.
A disappointing return for Paddy Considine
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