Angelus2 This is a good strong drama that sticks out a class above the rest; it is based on the justice system and shows a gritty world of 'winning'. What Lawyers are willing to do in order to free their client, distort evidence, trick witnesses and so on. It is beautifully shot, written and acted,the actors are perfect for the roles that they are given, everyone excels and no one is a weak link. The character Ben is very lovable he is innocent and naive; it is a sheer pain seeing him in prison and the predators that lurk. Characters like Hooch, Stone are played fantastically providing Ben advice and comfort in the youngsters time of need.While Freddie Graham is just plain scary...He doesn't even need to speak to send shivers down your back; the character at first seems to be the anti-hero but as the episodes go on it reveals his true motives, the only thing that I didn't like was the ending; It had no real closure with the character Ben.... But nonetheless a great show.

paolo_bf This mini-series hits the ground running, the first episode including the sea side scenes and part of the second are just fantastic, but then the drama engages in the ambitious task of analyzing whatever may or may not be wrong with the British penal and judicial system, I praise the intent, but to incorporate seamlessly and successfully this sort of concerns into a drama is not an easy task, we are promised some sort of rigorous examination, but instead of 'Oz' (brutal US prison drama), we get some sort of sub-Dickensian ambiguous horrors, where a lot is promised but very little delivered and there is always a little army of semi-benevolent Artful Dodgers and Fagins to save our hero's day, like Peter Postethwaite's Hooch 'the listener' and David Harewood's master criminal Freddie Graham, the latter does a really good job of injecting true menace in its role. We know we are entering Dickensian territory when Con O'Neill seedy lawyer complete with gotta, bandaged feet and perennial facial stubble appears on the scene, the irony is that he does a wonderful turn and steals every scene in which he appears, it is just that it feels like he had just been wandering out of a Great Expectation set to blunder into the wrong drama by mistake. In the last episode where all ideological concerns need to be shed to wind down the narrative the drama seem able to recreate some of the original dramatic tension of the first part. ON THE WHOLE Highly RECOMMENDED!

tonyjackie I have just watched this mini series and am pleased to say that it was pretty good overall with good performances in general.The plot was pacey and I liked the way that it showed prison life to be no bed of roses with a general feeling of fear as shown by new inmate Ben.The story is basically a murder mystery,did Ben do it or not?Obviously I won't disclose anything at all but the series did manage to keep me watching until the very end.As mentioned earlier,the acting is generally impressive especially from Con O'Neil as Stone,Bill Paterson as world weary cop Harry Box and David Harewood as the intelligent but very dangerous prisoner Freddie Graham.One thing I didn't like was the near romance between Ben and his defence lawyer Frances.The lingering looks,the holding of hands,the hugs,the kisses.No,it just didn't work for me as I couldn't accept that a young lady with the chance to make a name for herself would show such weakness,especially as it was her first murder case.It may well happen in reality,maybe.But it seemed out of place and forced and at one time I felt it could have ruined this fine drama.Luckily,it didn't get out of hand but I did find myself losing a bit of interest whenever Ben and Frances were alone together.Another small gripe was that I felt that the ending was maybe a little rushed and I had a bit of difficulty accepting what Hooch did towards the end.I definitely won't give any hints here in case you haven't seen the last episode.These are relatively minor niggles in a consistently gripping and well made mini series.You may have missed this five part series and I have no hesitation in recommending it when it is repeated which it undoubtedly will be.This is a decent drama that shows that British television can compete with more lavish crime series from America.Nice one.

jc-osms Engrossing and involving, if highly fictional BBC drama shown over five consecutive nights, highlighting, or should that be low-lighting the British criminal justice system, effectively putting in the dock for viewers' consideration the police force, legal system and prison office, all of whom, on the "evidence" here, are all found wanting. The programme effectively combines three main narrative strands around these institutions of modern society, from the murder incident itself and the police detective (defective?) work alongside it, the trial process set at length in a court of law and perhaps most effectively the dehumanising incarceration process within the confines of prison. Some bits work better than others. The basic murder mystery is handled somewhat freely and brought to a fairly undramatic conclusion, although it's main purpose I think was likely to be in effectively highlighting the grey area of collusion which purportedly exists between lawman and lawbreaker, here personified by Bill Paterson's career cop being surprisingly in cahoots with the Mr Big, played by David Harewood in prison. I also found the depiction of the legal system somewhat hackneyed with characters and situations just too stereotyped and really more at home in the mediocre BBC legal soap opera "New Street Law" from last year. Examples of this are the young female junior barrister getting involved (albeit lightly) with the young defendant and her barnstorming attempt to pin the murder on the dead girl's father, without even checking if he had an alibi (as of course he did). What will stay in the memory most however are the scenes in prison where the vilification of the prison service is damned to hell. There are no upholders of the law in the jail, the prison officers invariably displayed as weak, conniving or both. I really can't or maybe don't want to believe things are that bad in UK prisons with a Freddie Graham character running the place as his own fiefdom. That said, it made for taut drama, with many memorable if shocking scenes of rampant moral corruption inside. The acting is mostly very good, Pete Postlethwaite unsurprisingly, given his pedigree, taking the honours with a completely credible performance as Hooch, the hard-bitten lifer who's learned to adapt and survive but ultimately at the expense of his own conscience, which he redeems but pays for in full at the end. There are other excellent turns too, principally by Con O'Neill as the Colombo-type gumshoe who plays the situation for all he can get, Bill Patterson as the too-long-in-the-tooth detective who now blurs the line between right and wrong and Lesley Duncan as the experienced cynical senior barrister who rides roughshod over her client's feelings to get the easiest and quickest result for her. Special mention must go though to Ben Whilshaw as the innocent, out-for-a-good-time youngster who is drawn into a latter-day Kafka-ish nightmare who emerges at the end physically intact but obviously deeply affected by his horrific experiences and who in the last scene now feels outcast from the friendly football kick-about in which he participated in the opening scenes. He has a face reminiscent of John Lynch in "Cal" or David Bradley in "Kes", and portrays what must have been a gruelling role with conviction and realism. On the whole an excellent thought-provoking drama, let down only slightly by its probably necessary concessions to TV drama with perhaps more cliffhangers than would probably be the case with more typical, I would imagine, hum-drum real-life criminal cases. One caveat - would the BBC please stop its infuriating habit of trailing the succeeding programme at the end of the current programme. It's unnecessary and insulting to viewers' intelligence, especially in this instance when the programme was shown over successive nights.