INSIDE MAN. BBC1 9pm. Mon 26 and tue 27 sept TV PACE NO SPOILERS

[Blondeshavemorefun]

new drama starting David tennant

4 parts

1&2 on mon and tue 26/27 sept

3&4 following week mon and tue on 3/4 October

as usual bloody iPlayer will have them all 🙄 so rem this is tv paced 😛😁

On the face of it, it looks like an unlikely story following a prisoner on death row in the United States, a vicar in a quiet English town, and a maths teacher trapped in a cellar.

What’s their connection, you may ask?

According to the synopsis, the story follows a US prisoner on death row (Tucci), who is seeking atonement as he faces execution. It continues: “On a train in England, a journalist (West) is looking for a story. In a quiet little village, a vicar (Tennant) is picking up his son’s maths tutor (Dolly Wells) from the station.

“All four are about to be entangled in a dilemma that could lead one of them to murder.”

And as the synopsis also states: “Everyone’s a murderer – you just need a good reason and a bad day.”

Like we said, this series has a star-studded cast. Tennant plays Harry Watling, Tucci plays Jefferson Grieff, West plays Beth Davenport while Dolly Wells (Pursuit Of Love) plays Janice Fife.

The cast also includes Lyndsey Marshal (Dracula), Atkins Estimond (Hightown), Mark Quarterly (Cursed), Tilly Vosburgh (Maigret), Louis Oliver (Midnight Mass), Kate Dickie (The Witch) and Dylan Baker (Hunters).

The frequent references to "child porn" are annoying me as well. They would all know fine well that's not what it should be called.

Agree @MistressIggi 😡

I'm invested in it now, though some things are grating on me. The main source of irritation (aside from the vicar's reaction to the contents of the memory stick) is that imho, the actors playing his wife and the journo are really weak compared to the rest of the cast.

Stanley Tucci is brilliant in this.
I've always had a soft spot for him though

Well I've only watched the first episode so far but it's certainly not what I was expecting!
It makes me think of Split. I mean the feel of it and the tone of it

Actual convicted killers have been found to google the most ridiculously obvious things.

Moffat has always been a smart arse who thinks he's really clever but when you spend more than the briefest amount of time on his cleverness you realise it's just daft. Sherlock and his Doctor started off well but ended up disappearing up their own orifices. I expect the same will happen with this.

My theories are:

*Tucci isn't the inside man
*Janice isn't who she seems
*Edgar's parents are the sick monsters, not Edgar
*It will turn out to be even more ridiculous than we could ever imagine

I know that DT is a vicar, but it seems to have a lot more religious symbolism too with Janice.
All about sacrificing yourself or something?
I lost track of episode two a bit, who were the two women with Tucci character and the car mechanic ? What is Beth investigating ?

Interesting. I had similar thoughts:
The photos were of Edgar being abused as a child.
Janice is some sort of scammer setting lots of people up - maybe even the man who initially threatened the journalist was a Janice stooge.

The way Janice manipulated the vicar and his wife interested me. She tells the wife that she'll give her the password in exchange for something, and says she wouldn't give the vicar anything because she hates him. She then supposedly tells the vicar the password, he mentions this to his wife who wants to know what he gave Janice in exchange, because it must have been something big, right?

I wonder if Grieff and his wife were similarly set up by Janice and he ended up killing his wife because of Janice's manipulation. And that's why he's really interested in Janice.

This! and why is their son involved?
Could Edgar be the vicars brother?
Noone gets that upset.

Its all a bit hitchcock.

I think we're so far away from faith/religion we can't empathise with the vicar whose devoted to God and doing the right thing. He's got the responsibility for looking after others and showing compassion. He thinks he needs to save Edgar from committing suicide. It's his job. I know a lot of people should be selfish and protect their own. But he's supposed to be a good man of God with a responsibility. It was actually heartbreaking watching him decide to take the blame because he can't see no way out. Interesting to see David tenant play such a role as his dad was a minister or something.

His father was the Moderator of the Church of Scotland

It’s absolute rubbish.
completely unbelievable tripe

I'm leaning towards agreeing with you here! I mean how come this journalist hops on a plane to a prison in America to find where her friend is ( someone she met on a train and supposedly met a few times)
The acting is not really believable. Even the actors look like they don't believe the script. The lady in the cellar is really weird.

To be fair to the pp, he was a minister much longer than he was moderator! As you only do that for one year.

Except 'doing the right thing' is clearly going to the police with the memory stick as soon as you find out what's on it and not intimidating then kidnapping an entirely innocent woman while supressing the sexual abuse of children?

I would absolutely be fighting for Edgar to go to an institution rather than prison in the vicars shoes but the idea that leaving clearly unstable Edgar with the mother he's terrified of and doing nothing about the child abuse videos is the 'right' choice is bollocks, before you even consider leaving a woman chained in the basement with your wife who's been googling ways to murder a person (I like to imagine most normal people would be swiftly re-evaluating their relationship after that sort of conversation, but no, the Vicars cool with it).

I watch this thinking to myself throughout 'what the fuck'

Some of you have really invested in this

im just watching it as a drama

not sure who will get killed out of the 4 and who will kill

I love this and hate it at the same time. It's slick and blackly comic, but jeez, no one behaves like any of these people are behaving. I can't even list all the examples of stupidness and misogyny.

Worst of all, though, is DT discovering images of child abuse and not going straight to the police in horror... when he knows it wasn't even his son who was downloading the images.

I will carry on watching it though! 😉

I do feel like Moffat has made the women props in the great male dramas again.

I think Janice is a great character though. She has a very clear head.

Love the Stanley Tucci bits. Not keen on the DT bits as the whole woman in basement thing is just so silly. The vicar's wife is ridiculous - your husband confesses he has locked a woman in the basement and your reaction is to start googling ways of killing her??

Agree with theory that Edgar was an abused child. Also agree that it's annoying that female journo character seems to be only there so that the much cleverer male character can explain everything to her.

I too suspect that there will be some huge reveal about Janice. Either she is somehow connected to the Stanley Tucci character or she has some dark backstory where she used to work for MI6 or something. There's no way she's just a harmless maths tutor as she appears. When the vicar's wife left the bottle and glass with J, I was thinking that was stupid because J could use broken glass as a weapon.

Also, even though J's phone is broken it is still switched on, so could be traced to their house. Leaving her handbag in full view was also v.stupid.

Janice is obviously trying to set the vicar and his wife against each other, maybe one will end up killing the other. Personally I suspect DT will end up dead.

I'd rather watch a show which was just about Stanley Tucci doing his Sherlock Holmes thing and solving crimes from Death Row, that would be fine without all the other nonsense.

Surely the journalist was already in America - I though that she came back to ask about Janice the day after she'd done the first interview.