Mare Of Easttown - 7 Episodes

A kitchen sink small town middle-American cop show with the heroine being Mare, played by Kate Winslett, the jaded and potty mouthed junior police woman. It was slow, bordering on stop but we had some comprehensive characterisations.

In episode 2, she was ridiculously rude to the county investigator (her superior) who was there to help and halve the workload, if that had been me she would have been suspended on the spot. They then started piling on how damaged and dysfunctional Mare is due to a succession of tragedies, but clearly if these remain unresolved they would impact upon her work and she would have no place in the police force. This really was quite absurd!

My main problem up to this point was everyone was so vile and dysfunctional that I wanted them all dead, I just had no sympathy for anyone, and this didn't change as the series progressed.

By episode 3 you could see this series imploding under the multiplicity of back stories, quite frankly who cared about this level of detail, it just gave me a headache.

By episode 4 it had really turned into a "soap" as the show was no longer led by the murder investigation. It was both saggy and baggy with absolutely no narrative impetus!

The denouement was quite idiotic as our "brilliant" policemen only came upon the killer by accident and then made a hash of the arrest, and then we had another three episodes, I nearly put my head in the oven!

Ok in summation it was a dogs breakfast, it dragged on for 7 episodes and could have been done in 3, the acting was overall pedestrian with Kate Winslett using three faces, A to C clearly. Colin Sabel, played by Evan Peters was great(and what did Guy Pearce think he was doing acting in this turkey), it was just a colossal bore from start to finish, I am so grateful they won't make any more of this tripe.

This is at best a weak 6 out of 10, a 5 had it not been for Evan Peters.