After a weak episode last week where there was little plot with awful dialogue, Pemberton and Shearsmith have served up some more mediocrity in the form of Paraskevi.... You get the idea.
Centering around a perpetually nervous and superstitious man, Gareth who has a fear of Friday 13th and any bad luck routines that accompany his protection from universal bad luck.
The idea in itself (especially around the routines) is a nice one, but where the story headed completely ruined it for me personally.
I applauded Shearsmith's performance in last weeks episode, but my, is he awful in this. The incredibly fake posh accent and busy-body nervous posture is that we've seen all too often from him.
If the story kept on the trajectory of all this random happenstance, I think this would've been up there with the worst episodes they'd ever done, but to my relief, it seems making Gareth go through ridiculously arduous superstitious faux pas was the intention of his wife and therapist (still incredibly far fetched.
Now one of my biggest gripes with Pemberton and Shearsmith is how they often write northerners as if they're jut some big bag cliche full of 'Ey up lad, fancy a brew, I'm a miner me by heck!' As two thoroughly well educated men, and from background research (as contrary to this review I very much like the duo and prior work) they were huge fans of Willy Russell, Jim Cartwright who were two terrific northern playwrights, but you wouldn't know.
I KNOW, that they get away with this here 'technically' as they're played by actors who are very posh and think that northerners are just gravy drinking sausage roll scoffers, but it seems far more like a device to write northerners like that than hmm yeah, these are integral to the story. They're guilty of this far too often.
The whole thing wraps up however rather nicely in the end, and the ending (and Dermot O'Leary) are fantastic. There is a mirror shot when he breaks it, and that's fantastic, but it's rather wasted as we've had no time to develop any emotional connection as this man has just pathetically chased people around his own house.
It feels like if you look hard enough, and squint there could've been something very good here. However, theres too much rubbish hiding it, from Shearsmith's performance, all the cartoonish wahay! Action, the pathetic dialogue etc.
I hope for better next week.
Centering around a perpetually nervous and superstitious man, Gareth who has a fear of Friday 13th and any bad luck routines that accompany his protection from universal bad luck.
The idea in itself (especially around the routines) is a nice one, but where the story headed completely ruined it for me personally.
I applauded Shearsmith's performance in last weeks episode, but my, is he awful in this. The incredibly fake posh accent and busy-body nervous posture is that we've seen all too often from him.
If the story kept on the trajectory of all this random happenstance, I think this would've been up there with the worst episodes they'd ever done, but to my relief, it seems making Gareth go through ridiculously arduous superstitious faux pas was the intention of his wife and therapist (still incredibly far fetched.
Now one of my biggest gripes with Pemberton and Shearsmith is how they often write northerners as if they're jut some big bag cliche full of 'Ey up lad, fancy a brew, I'm a miner me by heck!' As two thoroughly well educated men, and from background research (as contrary to this review I very much like the duo and prior work) they were huge fans of Willy Russell, Jim Cartwright who were two terrific northern playwrights, but you wouldn't know.
I KNOW, that they get away with this here 'technically' as they're played by actors who are very posh and think that northerners are just gravy drinking sausage roll scoffers, but it seems far more like a device to write northerners like that than hmm yeah, these are integral to the story. They're guilty of this far too often.
The whole thing wraps up however rather nicely in the end, and the ending (and Dermot O'Leary) are fantastic. There is a mirror shot when he breaks it, and that's fantastic, but it's rather wasted as we've had no time to develop any emotional connection as this man has just pathetically chased people around his own house.
It feels like if you look hard enough, and squint there could've been something very good here. However, theres too much rubbish hiding it, from Shearsmith's performance, all the cartoonish wahay! Action, the pathetic dialogue etc.
I hope for better next week.