The first seven episodes were very good as they kept you guessing and threw up constant twists and misleads. A lot of these covered some real world issues in quite a sensible and clever way. For instance (spoilers...) the newsagent's story gave a very mature look at just how readily communities will condemn people with a history of sex offences and brand them as a paedophile when the reality might be far from that. It also portrays how the media can make things worse and how one person being murdered can have far reaching consequences on everyone around and dig up all these secrets.
Those bits were clever.
The 'physic' however just felt absolutely stupid. It is never readily explained if the loss of the pendant from the other murders was made public and if that was how he knew. However given how DI Hardy reacts to this and then actually goes and asks him for help the implication is that he couldn't have known that way. Making wide statements that 'it's something about water' or that a boat was involved can be written off as coincidences in a seaside town. However he is correct about the pendant and ultimately that the killer is someone close to them and the series basically just seems to end with the assumption that he is a wizard. Or physic, or whatever ridiculous nonsense he claims. That was weak.
Ultimately though what put a real negative turn on the whole series for me was the last episode. The 'revelation' of who killed Danny comes out of nowhere. It also comes right at the start of the episode making the rest of it a little dull to watch. For the killer to give himself up like that is a pretty disappointing end and then it just goes and shows how the whole murder happened. The fun in crime dramas is usually in seeing the truth come out piece by piece but with this series the entire first seven episodes are almost completely unrelated to the last one. Since the killer himself was given so little screen time throughout the rest of the series there wasn't even suspicion or the opportunity to wildly speculate as to who did it whilst watching it (also one of the perks of crime dramas).
As a result when it was revealed he was the killer I didn't really care. It might as well have just said Captain Hook did it and then showed a pirate ship sailing off into the distance for how unrelated it was to everything before it. His reason behind the murder being so bizarre just made it all feel kind of disappointing. Would have made a lot more sense if he had killed himself out of shame. The whole last episode just felt sort of dodgy to me and almost a little rushed like having him confess was a cop out because they didn't have enough episodes left to let it unfold naturally. The ending of it is sort of surreal and then sets up a weak excuse for cashing in on a second season.
Those bits were clever.
The 'physic' however just felt absolutely stupid. It is never readily explained if the loss of the pendant from the other murders was made public and if that was how he knew. However given how DI Hardy reacts to this and then actually goes and asks him for help the implication is that he couldn't have known that way. Making wide statements that 'it's something about water' or that a boat was involved can be written off as coincidences in a seaside town. However he is correct about the pendant and ultimately that the killer is someone close to them and the series basically just seems to end with the assumption that he is a wizard. Or physic, or whatever ridiculous nonsense he claims. That was weak.
Ultimately though what put a real negative turn on the whole series for me was the last episode. The 'revelation' of who killed Danny comes out of nowhere. It also comes right at the start of the episode making the rest of it a little dull to watch. For the killer to give himself up like that is a pretty disappointing end and then it just goes and shows how the whole murder happened. The fun in crime dramas is usually in seeing the truth come out piece by piece but with this series the entire first seven episodes are almost completely unrelated to the last one. Since the killer himself was given so little screen time throughout the rest of the series there wasn't even suspicion or the opportunity to wildly speculate as to who did it whilst watching it (also one of the perks of crime dramas).
As a result when it was revealed he was the killer I didn't really care. It might as well have just said Captain Hook did it and then showed a pirate ship sailing off into the distance for how unrelated it was to everything before it. His reason behind the murder being so bizarre just made it all feel kind of disappointing. Would have made a lot more sense if he had killed himself out of shame. The whole last episode just felt sort of dodgy to me and almost a little rushed like having him confess was a cop out because they didn't have enough episodes left to let it unfold naturally. The ending of it is sort of surreal and then sets up a weak excuse for cashing in on a second season.