I honestly can't make my mind up. Was it good or not?
I watched Stay Close in two sittings. After the first two episodes I was close to telling my Mrs that I was out and that she could finish the show on her own as she seems much more invested than myself. I gave it the benefit of the doubt and sat through a couple more and by this point, I had invested too much time into it to stop there. I was halfway through, intrigued in the story and committed to finishing it.
Every man and his dog seem to be watching and telling me to watch some of Harlan Cobens adaptations. I haven't seen any of the previous shows, this is my first, so I cannot compare this to any of the other shows and neither did I have any expectations or bias.
Aside from James Nesbit and Eddie Izzard, there are plenty of cast members who you find yourself recognising but not quite where from, which is distracting at first, but you soon get over that. I found it hard to put my finger on if the acting was bad, or was it simply the Coronation Street level of scripting which made these actors appear worse than they are? Because the script is bad at times, really bad. The interchanges between characters are so wooden and one dimensional, full of cliches, poor humour and stating the obvious far too often that it made it quite a distraction for me and I couldn't help pass comment, pretty much twice an episode, at how awkward it was. With that being said, the script may have added to the wooden acting approach, but it can't be to blame for Cush Jumbo's ability to only have one confused distant look for the entire series.
'Ken and Barbie' got some criticism but in all honestly, I didn't mind them. They were a little too Kill Bill to be realistic but if we're being honest here, all of this to happen in one small town stunk of the Midsummer Murders anyway, so realism wasn't exactly fitting for this show in the first instance. There were many other plot holes which stood out to me (which I won't go in to as I want to keep this spoiler free) which escalated the unrealistic feel to the show.
One thing that this show isn't, is slow. It's 100 miles an hour from the first scene to the last. The idea is clearly to have as many twists as possible, as many characters with grey areas as possible and as many story lines which can potentially intertwine as possible. There is so much going on and with that it can feel a little bogged down and like it has too many fingers in too many pies. I did get the feeling that some of the characters or some of the twists could have been cut out and it could have been trimmed and polished a little better. Twists and shocks for the sake of twists and shocks work, but not if you have more of them than you have episodes. The flashbacks and exposition to remind us of what has happened literally one episode prior, just incase we somehow forgot is also irritating after a while. If you need that many reminders then its one of two things: You're either expecting your audience to have short term memory loss, or there is so much information you want to be sure people are keeping up with what has happened. I'm assuming it's the latter, but you never know.
Also, if you're going to film in Blackpool and pass it off as just any seaside town, it would be best if you didn't get all of the Blackpool landmarks in. Plus - why is everybody's house massively superior to any house you've ever been in? Not a single thing is ever out of place and there is also a massive CCTV plot hole. I can't go to the toilet without being caught on CCTV but in this knockoff Blackpool, people can do what they want with minimal camera surveillance which is even more surprising when this includes Police Stations and million pound homes.
So having said all that, you're probably expecting me to have hated this show. But believe it or not, I actually enjoyed it. Everything above is completely how I felt when watching it, but I cannot deny, it was incredibly entertaining. Once I accepted the fact it wasn't going to be a HBO/True Detective/Mare of East town subtly intelligent type of detective show, I took it for what it was and I did enjoy it. Time flew when watching and the eight episodes went by quite quickly in just two sittings. I didn't see the 'killer reveal' coming, but that could just be my level of intelligence as many other people found the show too obvious. Sometimes TV doesn't need to be perfect, or something more than it is. Sometimes we can just sit back for 6 hours on a Sunday and Monday evening and watch something which entertains us. I will certainly be looking at some of Harlan Cobens other adaptations but having seen this first I will go into them with an idea of what to expect, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Would I recommend Stay Close? Yeah, believe it or not. 6/10.
I watched Stay Close in two sittings. After the first two episodes I was close to telling my Mrs that I was out and that she could finish the show on her own as she seems much more invested than myself. I gave it the benefit of the doubt and sat through a couple more and by this point, I had invested too much time into it to stop there. I was halfway through, intrigued in the story and committed to finishing it.
Every man and his dog seem to be watching and telling me to watch some of Harlan Cobens adaptations. I haven't seen any of the previous shows, this is my first, so I cannot compare this to any of the other shows and neither did I have any expectations or bias.
Aside from James Nesbit and Eddie Izzard, there are plenty of cast members who you find yourself recognising but not quite where from, which is distracting at first, but you soon get over that. I found it hard to put my finger on if the acting was bad, or was it simply the Coronation Street level of scripting which made these actors appear worse than they are? Because the script is bad at times, really bad. The interchanges between characters are so wooden and one dimensional, full of cliches, poor humour and stating the obvious far too often that it made it quite a distraction for me and I couldn't help pass comment, pretty much twice an episode, at how awkward it was. With that being said, the script may have added to the wooden acting approach, but it can't be to blame for Cush Jumbo's ability to only have one confused distant look for the entire series.
'Ken and Barbie' got some criticism but in all honestly, I didn't mind them. They were a little too Kill Bill to be realistic but if we're being honest here, all of this to happen in one small town stunk of the Midsummer Murders anyway, so realism wasn't exactly fitting for this show in the first instance. There were many other plot holes which stood out to me (which I won't go in to as I want to keep this spoiler free) which escalated the unrealistic feel to the show.
One thing that this show isn't, is slow. It's 100 miles an hour from the first scene to the last. The idea is clearly to have as many twists as possible, as many characters with grey areas as possible and as many story lines which can potentially intertwine as possible. There is so much going on and with that it can feel a little bogged down and like it has too many fingers in too many pies. I did get the feeling that some of the characters or some of the twists could have been cut out and it could have been trimmed and polished a little better. Twists and shocks for the sake of twists and shocks work, but not if you have more of them than you have episodes. The flashbacks and exposition to remind us of what has happened literally one episode prior, just incase we somehow forgot is also irritating after a while. If you need that many reminders then its one of two things: You're either expecting your audience to have short term memory loss, or there is so much information you want to be sure people are keeping up with what has happened. I'm assuming it's the latter, but you never know.
Also, if you're going to film in Blackpool and pass it off as just any seaside town, it would be best if you didn't get all of the Blackpool landmarks in. Plus - why is everybody's house massively superior to any house you've ever been in? Not a single thing is ever out of place and there is also a massive CCTV plot hole. I can't go to the toilet without being caught on CCTV but in this knockoff Blackpool, people can do what they want with minimal camera surveillance which is even more surprising when this includes Police Stations and million pound homes.
So having said all that, you're probably expecting me to have hated this show. But believe it or not, I actually enjoyed it. Everything above is completely how I felt when watching it, but I cannot deny, it was incredibly entertaining. Once I accepted the fact it wasn't going to be a HBO/True Detective/Mare of East town subtly intelligent type of detective show, I took it for what it was and I did enjoy it. Time flew when watching and the eight episodes went by quite quickly in just two sittings. I didn't see the 'killer reveal' coming, but that could just be my level of intelligence as many other people found the show too obvious. Sometimes TV doesn't need to be perfect, or something more than it is. Sometimes we can just sit back for 6 hours on a Sunday and Monday evening and watch something which entertains us. I will certainly be looking at some of Harlan Cobens other adaptations but having seen this first I will go into them with an idea of what to expect, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Would I recommend Stay Close? Yeah, believe it or not. 6/10.