I hated this within the first thirty seconds: the expressionistic sex scene that tells you exactly what the last two minutes confirm it's going to be about - a rape allegation. It is therefore a thriller with zero twists, at least in the first episode, which is all I can cope with.
Then a powerful female barrister strides in powerfully with powerfully sweeping camerawork, who then has to deal with the (gasp!) male (servant? Colleague?)'s *microaggression* that the case she just won came down to luck. None of this has anything to do with the plot. In fact, none of the female barrister's scenes are remotely necessary, they don't so much beget the story as act like a distant estranged cousin to it. But they're in there because feminism.
And what is the plot. Well, it's...mundane. A Tory minister's affair gets leaked to the press, and the party and family have to deal with the political and personal consequences, which they do bizarrely well. The feminist theme continues - every male character is boorish and/or a scumbag, every female character a virtuous victim or a girl boss. The women support each other. The wife even defends the aide - even though she screwed her husband, presumably knowing he was married.
This isn't really about holding the powerful accountable - that's simply a plot device. It's about holding men - and only men - accountable, at least judging by the first episode. Melissa James Gibson has worked on the fantastic The Americans, so it is nothing short of disturbing that she (and/or her co-creator/writer) has become yet another writer apparently so lobotomised by modern feminist ideology that she is willing to flush her writing craft down the toilet.
Paper thin characters, that even wonderful actors like Rupert Friend, Sienna Miller and Anna Madeley can do nothing with, an obvious plot a four month old could follow and a total absence of tension and credibility, not to mention the absolutely bizarre ending to episode 1 means that the real scandal here is that this is part of the U. K.'s new, apparent hatred of intelligent, mature, multi-layered scripts.
Not even worth a hate watch.
Then a powerful female barrister strides in powerfully with powerfully sweeping camerawork, who then has to deal with the (gasp!) male (servant? Colleague?)'s *microaggression* that the case she just won came down to luck. None of this has anything to do with the plot. In fact, none of the female barrister's scenes are remotely necessary, they don't so much beget the story as act like a distant estranged cousin to it. But they're in there because feminism.
And what is the plot. Well, it's...mundane. A Tory minister's affair gets leaked to the press, and the party and family have to deal with the political and personal consequences, which they do bizarrely well. The feminist theme continues - every male character is boorish and/or a scumbag, every female character a virtuous victim or a girl boss. The women support each other. The wife even defends the aide - even though she screwed her husband, presumably knowing he was married.
This isn't really about holding the powerful accountable - that's simply a plot device. It's about holding men - and only men - accountable, at least judging by the first episode. Melissa James Gibson has worked on the fantastic The Americans, so it is nothing short of disturbing that she (and/or her co-creator/writer) has become yet another writer apparently so lobotomised by modern feminist ideology that she is willing to flush her writing craft down the toilet.
Paper thin characters, that even wonderful actors like Rupert Friend, Sienna Miller and Anna Madeley can do nothing with, an obvious plot a four month old could follow and a total absence of tension and credibility, not to mention the absolutely bizarre ending to episode 1 means that the real scandal here is that this is part of the U. K.'s new, apparent hatred of intelligent, mature, multi-layered scripts.
Not even worth a hate watch.
