The Fall
Directed by Jakob Verbruggen.
Starring Gillian Anderson, Jamie Dornan, Laura Donnelly, Bronagh Waugh, and Ben Peel.
SYNOPSIS:
A Detective Superintendent is brought in from the London Metropolitan Police to help catch a killer when a murder in Belfast remains unsolved.
The Fall is one of those shows that falls under the Heading “Emperor” and the subheading “New Clothes”.
After the rabid froth people had spoken through about the BBC Detective thriller The Fall starring Gillian Anderson (The X-Files, The Turning) I felt I had missed out on an excellent piece of television. When on the BBC News website I read it had been commissioned for a second series after a 3.5 million viewer rating for the season finale, and again I wished I’d seen it, so I was extremely happy when I was given the chance to watch this ratings winner and review it. I’ve learnt from this that I should take note of omens when they are shown to me.
We follow DSI Stella Gibson (Gillian Anderson), from the London Met, who is requested to help with the investigation of a murder in Belfast. Her findings slowly unravel the possibility of this being a serial kller, which after another murder of a professional business woman proves this to be correct. Our killer Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan) is a bereavement counsellor and married father of two by day, and by night a stalker and killer of women. Wrapped up in this is an unwinding subplot involving drugs, escort agency girls, and police executions.
With the running time (305 minutes, time fans) of the The Fall, Jeanie (my wife) and I decided to watch the DVD release over two nights. The first two episodes involved a plodding paced story being dragged slowly from scene to scene, some blatantly obvious juxtapositioning which became so irritating it began to frustrate me to the point distraction, and acting which was so wooden the set could be classed as a fire hazard. My last complaint was so upsetting as I have seen a handful of the cast demonstrate their ability to act. Come the end of episodes 1 and 2, I wasn’t overly impressed by what I had seen.
The following night we watched the final three episodes and these began better; the pace was smoother and it was moving along at a good speed, though nothing much happened in the way of the story. Odds and ends where being given to you but nothing substantial to keep you interested. Coming in to the final episode I expected this to be an hour long conclusion to the threads we’d been given, but when I looked at my Blu-ray player’s clock and saw 40 minutes left I worried that this ending wasn’t going to be good. I was right.
There was no ending and I don’t dare to describe the climax as a a cliffhanger, as it wasn’t. A cliffhanger to me leaves you wanting. A cliffhanger doesn’t leave me looking up on the internet to see if I’m missing an episode. Going by what I’ve seen here I’ll avoid the second series in 2014 as I don’t want this “let down” feeling again from a TV show.
I should have remembered the words of Chuck D and Flavor Flav and not believed the hype.
Villordsutch is married with kids and pets. He looks like a tubby Viking and enjoys science fiction. Follow him on Twitter.
Originally published June 17, 2013. Updated April 11, 2018.
