Safe House (Series 2, Episode 4 Review)

Safe House lives up its title in a finale that plays it so bland it makes Shredded Wheat exciting in comparison. Safety first is the order of the day but even worse is the contempt in which the viewers are treated. If writing has the guts and imagination to follow through on everything it sets up, to answer the questions it’s had had the nerve to want to be asked, then any faults will remain niggles rather than a banging your head against a wall sort of frustration. Safe House has a San Andrea sized fault running through the carpets. It constantly disregarded the premises set out. Most of the things that happened in the first three episodes were meaningless and of no consequence, the actions of character’s weren’t explained or vaguely logical. Threads were unfurled and left dangling.

The villain here was never going to be Roger Lane as he was only introduced in the penultimate episode and the fingers were so blatantly pointing at Liam come the credits it was unlikely to be him either. But in making Simon The Crow it makes a mockery of a series that was a shambles already. What was Simon’s motivation? We’re fed a sudden back story at the dinner table as Liam says that his dad used to get very angry with his mum and if you hadn’t guessed already, it was then clear who the traitor was. This is at odds with the ideal of The Crow making the men suffer. Why would he kidnap his own wife if that’s the case? To make his son suffer? He didn’t have an affair with his wife. Though it would have been a plot twist! Did Simon kill MacBride? Did he kill John? If he did, the premise being that he took Liam away from him to Manchester because.. that’s a reason to kill? Also, pushing someone down a ladder confuses The Crow mythology more. Jason Watkins makes sinister and creepy at the reveal and is frankly the only one giving the script more power than it deserves.

There’s so much more left unanswered that you wonder if they binned the last four episodes in the writer’s room and went to the pub instead? What happened to Griffin after he got attacked and did he still have some sort link to the murders? What on earth was that John and Dani kissing stuff all about? Add to that, we never even saw a glimpse of Julie and her daughter in the finale so we didn’t see their reaction to his death (throwing a party presumably). Three episodes built around a family that are discarded at the last moment is insulting an audience that is asked to care. Then there is Tom’s fling with Elizabeth which had been signposted more than a Wonderbra campaign in the nineties. He admits to Sam they had a one year fling but it doesn’t seem much of an issue as he answers his phone mid confession. Was John going out with Sam at the time or was it before? Anyone? Dervla Kirwan must have fancied a cold holiday as she was only in about four scenes.

If TV shows could win awards for ending a series with unsatisfactory nonsense then the mantelpiece in this safe house would be chock-full. You can question plenty of the closing twenty minutes so here goes: Why did Simon bring his gun to the safe house, pretty much waving it under a cop’s nose. Not just any cop’s nose either, the one that has been chasing you for years. Why didn’t Liam go straight to Tom? All the evidence was there. In another deviation from The Crow’s past, Simon seems to have disposed of Sam’s body (dead or alive) rather than locking her up. Here’s the thing – we don’t know do we? Anything. As Brook wrestles mad Duke in the world’s worst wet t-shirt contest the series is over and what strives to be an epic cliff hanger is simply the act of a programme drowning in it’s own unsavoury fluids.

Cast and script changes have clearly had a big affect on a project that looked low on confidence. Ironically for a show so slow moving it might have been the battle against the clock to get everything up to scratch after all the production problems and this more than shows on screen. It’s already had a second breath of life but a third will be prolonging the misery. If Sam is alive she’ll stay locked up somewhere and this house on the rugged North Wales coast should get a change of locks, be boarded up and condemned. 2/10

 

Safe House (Series 2, Episode 3 Review)

If Safe House could be summed up by one moment it’s when John Channing mumbles about his kidnapped girlfriend “I did something to try and get her back. I don’t think it worked”. He doesn’t think? To summarise: His bribe for information from the imprisoned Griffin means he now can’t speak at the moment and thus is unable to tell anyone where Julie is. If he even knew at all. Then there’s the small matter of MacBride getting murdered while on a rescue mission he ordered. Oh, and she is still missing. He doesn’t think it worked?! The show’s underwritten, half-hearted core is exposed more than ever tonight.

There is at least an attempt to give the mundane Tom Brook a bit of backstory but sadly it is lifted from the “haunted cop did something bad in past” manual. He attacked Griffin in a windswept location and.. that’s about it. Frankly if he was a mass murderer it wouldn’t make him any more interesting. Though Moyer’s portrayal is lifeless he’s not exactly given much to work with. If the words don’t lift off paper the subject matter will never translate on screen.

In a time when drama is pushing barriers, Safe House offers the same old tried and tested tropes. There’s the retired cop trying to solve an old case, the forlorn wife, the gruff, bitter DI in Olly Vedder to name just three. Their actions speak even louder cliches than any of their uninspiring words. Sam steals confidential information from a police computer, John goes up a ladder of his yard in the pitch blank just after being confronted by a creepy Liam… yadda yadda. You get the gist.

The plot progresses slightly when Tom links empty properties all owned by New Mersey Estates. The man who runs the company is a Roger Lane, the same person who came up in Sam’s quickfire computer search. By lucky coincidence Simon Duke also knows this man having done photos for his brochures. Jason Watkins remains criminally underused so only a big role in the finale will justify the inclusion of such a talented actor.

As for the rescue scene, something that has been three episodes in the making? Vedder smashes the glass of an abandoned building and just walks up to her. No drama, no tension. It just happens. So Julie is safe and sound but nobody seems to have told our John who looks about as excited by her return as a cow walking into an abattoir. Not one to want to hang around with his thankfully alive girlfriend (why would you?) John is asking for a lift home with Tom. To cut a short story shorter, he gets murdered. His still, blood covered corpse providing Ashley Walter’s strongest performance to date.

Liam appears to be prime suspect number one for Channing’s murder and as the scene is intercut with his dad finding a copy of ‘The Crow’ book in his bag, likely to be first in line regarding the villain himself. Or a copycat. Or someone who wants revenge after what happened to his mum. Blah blah blah. The odds are on The Crow being either Liam or Roger with a chance they’re actually working together. Maybe Simon is involved? Who knows? Who cares? At least there’s only one week left. 4/10

 

 

 

 

Safe House (Series 2, Episode 1 Review)

Not for the first time Christopher Eccleston has ditched a successful show after the first series and Safe House, which got an average of six million viewers a couple of years back, had to rewrite, relocate, recast and probably loads of other things beginning with the letters R E too. Essentially series two has the same DNA with different chromosomes. It’s difficult for yet another crime drama to find new twists to the genre and it kind of succeeds if you can forgive the cliches and fanciful leaps of imagination needed.

The opening abduction scenes are reminiscent of Scream without the gore as a tied up John Channing (Ashley Walters) watches on as his girlfriend Julie (Lynsey McLaren) is kidnapped before his eyes. When the news is out it triggers memories for Tom Brook (Stephen Moyer) a former detective and regeneration of Robert Carmichael. He believes that this new crime has a link to a former case of his, a case which imprisoned Jason Griffin, a man nicknamed ‘The Crow’ for reasons as yet unknown because he doesn’t have any wings. Or a beak. Alas, Tom believes that either he wasn’t working alone or they locked up the wrong guy and the killer is still out there. For Simon Duke, who looks destined to be another criminally small role for the wonderful Jason Watkins, the news also causes flashbacks but his experience is more personal due to losing his wife at the hands of The Crow nine years previous. Keeping up? Good, that’s the science bit over with.

Think Nordic Noir set in Albert square. The camera shots are slow and lingering lingering, the coastal setting is grey and bleak but the performances don’t quite fit the scenery. The main characters look like they’ve been airlifted in from a soap. Moyer’s constant frowning and unconvincing delivery grates but more concerning is Walter’s portrayal of a man whose girlfriend might be dead. He looks disinterested at best, completely bored at worst.

So to the cliches: Retired detective coming back to a case? Potential of copycat killings? The wrong person in prison? Jason Watkins not being given enough to work with? You can tick all the above off. While there aren’t any plot holes as yet, certain issues need to be raised. It’s curious why the police didn’t make a connection to The Crow until Tom turned up. Or why the family wasn’t given immediate protection and why they were then handed over to someone with a deep connection and history to the case. It’s not bad by any stretch but perhaps the show is perfectly named. For a basic premise that is a little different to the norm it still feels generic, still feels like it’s in a comfort zone. If the twists are good then the game can be raised.

As we know full well, this Safe House will be about as safe a sand castle at full tide. Thankfully there’s plenty of intriguing questions this very slow paced opener has set up. What incoming danger awaits the residents of the house? Will Julie survive? Is Simon free from all this? Is the wrong man in prison? Whether or not they’ll be executed well is what this programme now rests on. Whether or not anyone will be executed at all is another matter. 5/10