Our House

Not so much a review of a mediocre 'thriller', more a crit on UK TV drama as a whole. It seems to me that we're trying to impress foreign audiences with a perceived standard of living that is totally unreal. A house like this Edwardian gem would be worth what... £1,000,000 in London? Not far off it at any rate. How on earth could these chumps afford that? Left in a will? Lottery winners? Drug lords? This is not a one-off either. Loads of these middle class thrillerettes spring up with factory production line regularity... and they all live in sodding architect-designed masterpieces in the country, or Tudor relics, stately mansions or six bedroomed gated community horrors. Life just isn't like this for most people. I literally turn off when I see things heading in this direction. 'Happy Valley'... now that's realistic. Real people living real lives in normal houses. Who are we trying to impress? Like I said... there's an eye on foreign markets here - look at the lovely UK... they all shop at Waitrose, have bean-to-cup machines in echoing marble worktop kitchens and their kids have bedrooms that double for conference venues. Jeez. Give me a break. Get real!

Episode 1 was good laying out the story frame. Found it intriguing - episode 2 did not add enough, by three it had nothing. Original idea wasted. The whole point of UK drama having fewer episodes than US drama is that the content is rich and concentrated - now we have short and dilute - not a good bargain.

A woman returns home, to find her husband has sold their house, and vanished.

I thoroughly enjoyed this four part series, I have read some of the reviews, I'm not sure what the naysayers were watching, this was a tense, dramatic, well acted series, which is loaded with surprises, twists and turns galore.

There's a degree of originality to it, it's unlike anything I've watched for some time, at the end of part one I was perplexed at how the story could be stretched out, at the end of part two I was left in no doubt, it went in a very different direction.

It's slick, it's well produced, it's certainly well acted, Tuppence Middleton, Martin Compston and Rupert Penry Jones are all great, as are the supporting cast.

You'll be left baffled and intrigued, you won't be able to predict events.

8/10.

As others have said, episode 1 was very good and left me intrigued as to where the story would go next. But it didn't go anywhere. All the drama and tension fizzled out over the next 2 episodes. By the time ep4 came on I was already done. Just as well as the ending was terrible too.

All in all, it felt like someone had a really good idea for the start of a story, and then was given the green light to make it before they'd actually figured out the rest of the plot.

On the plus side the production values were nice and it looked great, though a few more light bulbs would have been good - do all interiors have to be shot in cave like darkness all the time these days?

I like Martin Compson and Tuppence Middleton but they didn't make a convincing couple in or out of love and I felt little connection with either of them. It felt more style than substance, the storyline was quite a stretch and wasn't helped by the frequent time jumps.

It wasn't terrible, but overall I found it dull and far-fetched with unengaging characters, so for me a miss.