My rating: 1 out of 5
To be honest, I never read the books, but it’s impossible to have never heard of them if you read (crime) books. I always wanted to read them, but there are so many books and so little time. I even bought the books, but they’re still unread on my e-reader. However, I think we can all agree that reading books and buying books are two different hobbies. Ideally, you have both of these hobbies. However, I think Simon Beckett’s books about Dr. David Hunter, a forensic anthropologist with a tragic past, wouldn’t be such worldwide bestsellers if they were as boring as the TV series. So yeah, spoilers ahead. Here’s the first one: read the book, don’t waste your time watching this pathetic attempt of a film adaption.
After I started watching the epilogue of episode 1 and the intro, I stopped watching because I wanted to watch it with my wife. It gave me some True Detective vibes, and we both loved the first season of that show. With that, my expectations grew, but it only got worse from there. The entire series (6 episodes) is the definition of a mediocre TV production. It’s like an early 90s TV production in the glossy (or in this case gloomy) HD look of today’s zeitgeist. I really hoped to eventually learn some interesting chemistry things, but no, all I got were lousy flashbacks of a family tragedy.
But where to start? Well, maybe with the misleading name of the series “Chemistry of Death,” which is the name of the first book. To my surprise, that was settled in the first two episodes. The following four episodes are an adaptation of the second book, “Written in Bone.”
I could go on about the acting, the special effects, the storyboard, the annoying flashbacks, the pacing, the direction—you name it, everything is just meh. And as this show wasted 6 hours of my time, I won’t waste any more of your time reading about (another) film adaptation gone terribly wrong. Go read the books!
But to finish with a highlight: the title track Aftermath by Mogli is really sweet.
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