Reviews

This Can only be expected from a genius writer: Anthony Horowitz the creator of Foyle's War.

Masterfully intertwined two mysteries in two time periods threaded thru a story line that exists in both worlds.

If you are a fan of mystery drama with depth and intrigue, you found a master piece in Magpie Murders.

Enjoy!!!!

Here we go again how a decent series fall off a cliff. This season is very slow, the characters are grossly inaccurate not to mention the horrible miscast of Chris Rock as a head of crime organization. He can not deliver the needed acting so far in the two episodes. I keep waiting for him to crack a racial joke. And to have the head of a crime syndicate to go to a national bank to pitch a Credit Card idea (started by Diners Club in the 50's just as a reference) for the first time and the dumb bank executive obviously decades behind the intelligence of the crime boss, just doesn't see it. That makes a lot of sense!!! At least if it was entertaining, I could tolerate the gaffs and none sense, but the problem is that IT IS NOT remotely entertaining. Slow as hell................

This is in the tradition of Agatha christie mixed with some modern gadgetry like CCTV and alike. It successfully mixes the new crime drama narratives with the nostalgic Morse like mystery and clues. The characters are wonderfully casted. I always thought Jason Watkins is an underrated actor who can deliver so much more. I have seen him in Lewis and Poirot in various characters. What a genius pick for this series. And it does keep it light and funny while delivers the beautiful British crime mystery elements. I strongly recommend it to those who enjoy a bit nostalgic traditional brain mystery and tired of computer algorithms and CCTVS to solve crime. Enjoy

Solid writing, great characters, fantastic cinematography. Really solid british detective mystery series you can never find in US. Hope it will continue

Absolute torture to watch. highly inaccurate writing. Terrible music with a monotonous beat. Terrible raping that sound like loud spoken words. Terrible voices. i can go on on.

I did't rate this poorly because it has nothing to do with Perry Mason; It is because it is poorly done. The characters are cartoonish one dimensional. Every scene is cliche after cliche. It pretends to be like Bulldog Drummond from the early 50's with frontal nudity and gratuitous sex . The series feels out of place. The dialog is horrible. The pace is slow with many irrelevant scenes to fill up time. I can go on on. But i just would say: It is a massive failure for HBO. The early high rating is clearly all insiders to build momentum. But it will eventually come down once more people watch the non sense,

It's not funny as a comedy, it's not intriguing as mystery. It's not a drama either. It's strange for sake of being strange. No point is made and non is conveyed. If you have consumed large quantities of alcoholic beverage and need to watch a pointless drivel to fall asleep, you hit the jackpot. This is the show for you

I would rather watch two hours of Fortnite on youtube. You know the creators are desperate when they throw horses and dogs in the action sequences. The action is simply played out and comical now. The adversaries mostly wait to get stabbed or shot. Halle Berry looks ridiculous in throwing guys three times her size. I never expect a thick plot in JW franchise but this is almost like they are winging it as they go along. Like why dont we throw a horse in there? Or maybe a dog next time. How about giraffe in Time Square for JW4?! The whole thing is mind numbingly stupid, the action is old and silly, the characters are cartoonish and to top it all, they added Halle Berry to do marshal art!!! For god's sake... In contrast, you should watch Extraction on Netflix. Same sort of fast gamer action sequence but with depth. The setting much more believable and characters can actually deliver emotion. What a great contrast to this piece of junk.

Just a cliche waste of time. Huge emphasis on style as usual with US Network junk. Trying hard to produce BBC like Crime dramas but fall massively short. The main character is 100% miscast for the role in his Gucci suits yet mentally tormented. I dot know when you expect these types of major network garbage become believable ad some notion of substance. Everything is over the top like hitting like a sledgehammer.

I was hoping for something like Trapped and acting like Olafur Olafsson. But what you get is regurgitated plot from many other procedural crime dramas. And something about the dubbing reminds of old Hong Kong Kung Fu movies. The emotion is definitely lost in dubbing. The chase scenes are cheesy and most of the dialog is fillers without advancing the plot or characters. All in all, not worth wasting your precious time. Go watch reruns of Luther and be mush happier you did.

Beautiful cinematography and set design. Meticulous attention to period authenticity. However, big hole in the middle. No substance to hold the audience throughout the plot (if any). The main character acting is abysmal. The psycho drama is pretentious and more focused on creating horror like atmosphere. All in all, the series fail to intrigue and will go down as another attempt to stir emotion without purpose. The episodes get progressively worse as the very thin plot line gets incoherent and nonsensical by episode 7 where it turns into a horror Sci Fi when the writers and director have completely ran out of ideas. I can not describe how pointless and obtuse you find the ending leaving you feeling robbed hours of your life you wont get back. For comparison you can watch AMC's Alienist, a similar period crime drama in NY; But very intriguing and immersive.

Once again, Sarah Phelps has gone of the rails and did what she did to ABC Murders and Ordeal by Innocence and other Agatha Christie classics. I don't understand how Christie's estate allows her completely murdering the plot, characters and all the underpinning of the novels. She also wrote Dublin Murders which is worse than watching paint dry. Her pretentious style and over the top approach to story-telling is the opposite of subtle style of Agatha Christie. This is an absolute crime to use Christie's name and produce a kind of garbage she does.

This show has run out of ideas and complete bankrupt in creativity and intrigue the first two seasons had. I noticed a decline from first to second but overall still watchable. Third season on the other hand, has no under current that can grab you and thread the plot forward. It is excruciating to watch meaningless pointless scenes one after another. Psycho drama DOES NOT deliver and bores the audience to the point of oblivion

This overtly concern with mood and darkness overshadows sense and intrigue. The script can not grasp and entice and the nonsense dialog to bring a sense of mystery is annoying. Acting is ok but material is simply awful. I don't understand why Sarah Phelps continues to churn out one piece of junk after another especially with the job she did on Ordeal by Innocence and ABC Murders and yet she can still get gigs to write utter none sense trash.

The plot is too far fetched especially for a team of 5 members. The acting is ok but the material is almost like a spof. They have done a good job in creating the authentic period feel. All in all a very disappointing attempt by BBC. So much potential wasted

I like some of David Finch's work but this one is just too pretentious to be a deep intelligent physiological thriller and it falls short on all counts. First off the pace is excruciatingly slow. I mean you see a scene of Agent Ford changing shirt and taking a shower. Its like watching paint dry!! There's no tension build up or any under current of events to make this interesting. I guess if you are a phycologist, you may find some of the long winded conversations about the criminal psychology interesting, but for the rest of us mere mortals on Earth, it is like watching a cat napping. I give them kudos for creating an authentic 70's feel and the killers physical resemblance to the actual criminals. But those elements can't make up for the massive vacuum of intrigue and tension needed to keep the audience engaged and not fall asleep.

I don't know where they find the writers for this screenplay, but I would say it is a bunch of old regurgitated lines which are not funny. In fact, its painful to watch how desperately they try to be funny but never get there. The plot is obviously rediciolous, there is no acting and the lines and jokes and gimmicks are so so so played out. Honestly i can't find one redeeming quality that i can mention. Even the shot angles and the feel of the scenes were bad. I don't know the director of photography for this movie, but i can tell you it is horrible. Sandler is still stuck in is character in SNL from 30 years ago. Never got passed Happy Gilmore. Aniston is ok on delivery but the material is corny and just plain terrible. I feel bad for her to stoop to these levels for a payday. Going to Netflix direct-to-stream junk for someone who was once a legitimate actress must be hard.

They had a lot to work with and make it interesting. But no, it falls way short. The characters are flat, the pacing is horrible. The flash backs are confusing. The plot is not interesting the way it is done; and to top it all, Kate Beckinsale does not deliver. She is just reading the lines and mimicking and not emotionally engaging the audience. The only character that come across genuine is Olafur Olafsson. He did a good job and stands out form the rest of the crowd, I wasted time on 4 episodes and never got bought in. Not even for 5 minutes. Kept hoping something will elevate the plot......No nothing ever did

I am ok with suspending logic and disbelief for the sake of intrigue and thrill of the plot. But at certain point, the line is crossed and it becomes silly without enough wit to be a comedy. Very few creators can pull it off without crossing that line. Tarantino has made a career of pushing the limit on that fine edge. Although Kill Bill was awfully close to crossing the silly line. Tin Star has crossed that line in the second season. The intrigue is completely gone. Characters are flat and the integral conflict is also flat. Not having those elements, what the audience is left with is silly continuous violence without consequence and unreal scenes and plot. It happens too often that series continue to decline and that creative juice in early seasons diminish. It usually happens after a few seasons such as True Detective current incoherent 3rd season. Unfortunately, for Tin Star it didn't take that long. It dropped off after only one season.

I really wanted to like the series especially coming from BBC. But I was disappointed with the casting and lazy writing. There's not enough action to be thriller, not enough wit to be a comedy and not enough tension to be a drama. So I don't know what to call this show. It's a mix of the worst of three genres. It just doesn't come together. Jodie Comer is horribly miscast. Her character is cartoonish. The assassinations are so terribly done without any preparation. She just shows up and gets into whatever place the important targets reside and no one is watching and no CCTV ever exists. Miraculously get passed trained armed guards with nothing but hair pin to kill a very important mob boss. No worries about forensics or even getaway plan. And 110 lbs delicate features of Villanell of course can over power any pro body guard. It's just sloppy & lazy. Huge emphasis on ecstatic rather than substance. Great cinematography that looks stylish but noting deep under the surface. You can check your brain out on a bottle of scotch followed by 5 joints, still not miss much of the thin plot. The only redeeming quality is Sandra Oh in this show. in order to finish this review, I speed watch from 4 to 8 ep. It does pick up a bit in Ep 6 to 8 for those who can suffer thru the first 5 episodes and be able to suspend disbelief with so so so many plot holes. Then it comes the ultimate climax in the ending. It is a NONE SENSE last 10 minutes. Nothing is tied up, the ending is a formula for next season and makes watching the whole thing a waste of time.

For those who like real crime thrillers, watch Luther first 4 seasons, For those who like action, watch The Punisher 1st season and those who like a solid crime drama, watch Endeavour. This was a colossal waste of time.

Season 8 is officially ran out of ideas to keep this show engaging. The plots are forced and predictable. The chemistry is gone and the show is now a played out bore. I expect this will the last season

If you are stuck on David Suchet as Poirot and the old BBC series, you wont like this mini series. However, I ask to keep an open mind. I am a huge Christie fan for a very long time and have seen all the Christie movie adaptations going back to 1960's Alphabet Murders and Murder Ahoy etc. This interpretation, although not very true to the earlier novels, it does ring true to older Poirot stories. His character changes and becomes more cynical and darker in his older age. This is more inline with the later stages of Poirot which is accurate. Secondly, Malkovich has done an outstanding job brining the nuances of his character to the forefront. Something that was missing in David Suchet's series of more flamboyant Poirot. Although I do like the later seasons in that Poirot series.

The ABC murders plot foundation is not very unique especially in the old mysteries in the 1930's and 40's. Like Charlie Chan, Sherlock Holmes, Philo Vance etc. But the trick is the ambiance and the characters that make this story very intriguing. I do have some reservations about a few issues with the story. But all in all, enjoyed it and didn't get too bothered but some of the artistic licenses the writer has taken to make the story more engaging.

The 3rd season is a true disappointment so far. After 4 episodes I gave up. Nothing is happening. There's very little story line that actually moves the plot forward. There is a lot of extraneous conversations that might be necessary in the first two episodes to build characters. But after 4 episodes and excruciating slow pace, I lost interest in the actual mystery. I really like Mahershala Ali and he did a great job in his role in three different periods. The aging effects are also unbelievably amazing. But those are not enough to hold the viewers interest. This story should have been done in 4 episodes and many scenes should have been cut out. Maybe then, it could have worked. For those who will continue to watch this season, I wish you luck. I hope the ending wont disappoint

I loved the series although MC Hall's British accent was awkward! The series gets nicely complex until Ep 6 when the underlying thread becomes evident and thus predictable ending even the final twist was seen a mile away. That said, it doesn't take away from viewing as it still engrossing albeit you know how it will end. It is also clearly a British production which is far superior to any US broadcast network junk one sees on major networks. All in all I recommend watching it