To ask if it’s worth watching Adolescence ?

[CalmingInfluence]

Everyone’s raving about it

I don’t even have a Netflix account atm

@FairlyTired I was in bits at the end of episode 4. At the beginning of the episode when they talking about celebrating his birthday I was thinking how can you carry on as normal when your son had been accused of murder, but then obviously they weren’t carrying on as normal. And even going shopping wasn’t going to be normal with people recognising them, neighbours staring at them etc. The discussion about mum and dad when they were 13 and what they got up to. I sat there thinking how would I carry on with life if that was my son

This is exactly the point. Misogyny in the head of a 13 year old and how it works, a young boy who has being sucked into the dangerous bullshit of the manosphere.
Parents too oblivios to what was he doing in his room "safe" without any control on the exposure of the Internet. The environment: insecurity, terrible role model of a dad ashamed of a non sporty son, the seeking of approval.
The cop as an adult, is also ablivious, does not even know about the meaning of symbols and terms which were key I'm the investigation.
It's not about the victim but a focus on the perpetrator, and the new society we live in.

It's an eye opener. The serie is excellent.
A must watch if you have kids.

People are missing the point.

@Abstracts I have seen posts from people saying I wanted more action (ie more violence, killing), twists, a whodunnit. They were very much missing the point

It was ok. Worth watching and I wanted to see it through to the end.

I found it very slow paced and I was waiting for something significant to happen which didn’t emerge. But I suppose that was not the point.

As a viewer I was still questioning that he was possibly innocent up to the last episode - even though it was shown that he had done it in the tape recording. But maybe that was me just being thick and not getting it!

I think posters who found it slow and boring perhaps prefer watching fast paced, action packed dramas.

This is not one of those. It is very much plot driven and finely nuanced. And for me, quite eye opening.

I feel the gimmick of the one shot episodes meant these issues - and I entirely agree with @PsychoHotSauce on this - were not able to be explored/ explained and therefore somewhat lost. I feel it was an opportunity missed, and in particular we really didn’t get an insight into the influences on Jamie, and the impact (if any) the relationship with his dad may have had which was lightly hinted at in the fourth episode

@RampantIvy but do you think that is part of the problem with society, we are fed too much fast paced, violent drama and so expect it in most things we watch.

@Abstracts the programme makers have expressly said it wasn’t a whodunnit so if a poster who watched it and complained that it wasn’t a whodunnit have completely missed the point!

It is a not to be missed piece of tv.It is so realistic and brilliantly acted. Also informative and certainly an eye opener.Just wait for the BAFTAs. You can pay £4.99for a Netflix subscription which is low because of the odd and very short adverts. I hardly notice them and they have a countdown attached so very short. I think the critics on here have not been prepared to give it the attention it deserves. As for criticising the acting - well that is ridiculous.

I'm really interested to see so many people saying they didnt get the hype either.

I think it had the potential to be good, but needed to explore his 'radicalisation' a bit more if they wanted it to have an impact.

Nah. Was looking forward to watching it because of the hype but it lost me after the first half an hour.

I agree, the one-shot 'look at us and how clever we are doing it in one take' placed a lot of limitations on the show. The pacing, how realistic the timings/sequences of events were, not being able to really delve into specific influences but sort of dancing over lots of them with a light touch were all impacted.

I'm a bit torn about this. Part of me wonders whether the one shot thing was used as a PR angle - the media latched onto it as the primary thing to run a piece on at first, and the message of the show was secondary. The message wouldn't have been heard if people didn't watch it in the first place, and it came to their attention because of the media latching onto the one shot technique iyswim. All of the early articles I read about this were praising Jamie's acting and pushing how each episode was just one take, not so much what the show was actually about - that was said as something of an afterthought.

If the PR team just said to various media 'we've got a new show about toxic masculinity/male violence/misogyny' etc would there have been as much uptake and coverage? A huge proportion of their audience (males, mothers of teen boys) would automatically feel alienated and 'attacked' or just dismissive, but this way it kind of snuck in the message using a shield of 'look at this technical marvel and fantastic acting with no mistakes'.

But it restricted their ability to keep the attention of a lot of people, felt incomplete or superficial at times, and like a self indulgent pet project quite a bit of the time.

I mean the first episode was good but it was downhill after that. Implausible scenes, cringy dialogue and sorry but the boy's acting is not up to the demands of the role

I think that was deliberate on the part of the writers - his face wasn't shown in the video and he kept protesting his innocence. Why they did that when it was never a whodunnit but a 'whydunnit' is another example of how it didn't work.

I loved it, binged it in one sitting.

Yes. Very much so.

I agree so much. Don’t know why his performance is so applauded but maybe it’s more the script’s fault. It’s so badly written.

The simpering teacher at the school was bloody awful as well.

Shaun’s mum?

It's one of those series like Time that you have to treat as a long movie and watch all in one go. I'd say it's worth a watch, it's not fantastic or the best show ever but it's watchable and slightly different.

I think the focus of the reaction has been misdirected, it's not a story about a boy falling under the spell of male toxicity, it's more of a story about how everyone in society is partly culpable when a boy stabs a girl. The teachers, the family, the police, even the victim are partly to blame for what happened.

I don't think there has to be something wrong with someone if they don't enjoy the same things other people do? Otherwise there wouldn't be different genres of TV/film.

I understood it wasn't a 'whodunnit' and that it was a 'whydunnit' but I didn't feel like I really understood why he did it at the end. I got that he was bullied and rejected by a girl. But it seemed a bit of a leap from one rejection, we needed (in my opinion), more background of him being radicalised.

I thought the boy, especially in episode 3 was an amazing actor. He flipped from little boy to angry/teen in an extremely realistic way if you know this age group. And doing it without breaks by an unknown was fabulous.
The rest is something we might know but don’t always fully believe.
And the bit about adults not understanding what teens are really saying.
It’s a good reason why we should ban smart phones for youngsters and more parental controls. It is scary, and I regret not having more restrictions on my own children at those ages.

Yes you've totally hit the nail in the head there for me.

If it wasn’t supposed to be a “whodunnit” why make the viewer doubt his guilt?