STRIKE 5 - TROUBLED BLOOD - bbc 1 9m sun and mon - TV PACE ONLY. NO SPOILERS

[Blondeshavemorefun]

Yah no 5 of the strike series starts on Sunday

BBC
Based on the 2020 novel, the second most recent in the Strike series, Troubled Blood sees Strike tackling his first ever cold case.

The official synopsis the season says: "Private detective Cormoran Strike is visiting his family in Cornwall when he’s approached by a woman asking for help finding her mother, Margot Bamborough, who went missing under mysterious circumstances in 1974.

"Strike’s never tackled a cold case before let alone one 40 years old, but despite the slim chance of success, he’s intrigued and takes it on, adding to the long list of cases that he and his partner in the agency Robin Ellacott are currently working on. Robin herself is also juggling a messy divorce and unwanted male attention as well as battling her own feelings about Strike.

"As Strike and Robin investigate Margot’s disappearance, they come up against a fiendishly complex case with a psychopathic serial killer and witnesses who cannot all be trusted. They learn that even cases decades old can prove to be deadly

Very poor revelation at end, all those rather pointless murders by a very unlikely killer, yes I know it's a murder mystery! But that didn't work for me, disappointing.

I've watched Troubled Blood now and really liked it. There are excellent supporting cast performances and cameos. I've read the book before and , although things have to be removed for tv, I think they are excellent adaptations. What makes it is the subtlety of the performances from Tom Burke and Holiday Grainger- they are both excellent actors. It's got really good quality cinematography too.

I have just rewatched and reread over the Christmas break. Were any other book affectionados a bit disappointed with the curry scene? I think it lacked the sexual tension, and, they underplayed Robin’s injury compared to the book. It really wouldn’t have cost much in make up to give her the black
eyes that are described in the book.

It’s an impossible book to to adapt into four hours of TV; I think they did a pretty good job, but so much of the Strike/Robin relationship progression was truncated or lost. The fight after the dinner party was so brief, the famous curry scene… And then moving Strike’s “You’re my best friend” to the final scene made it seem like he was giving this as a reason not to pursue a relationship ship with Robin, which isn’t the way that revelation is presented in the book. Did anyone else feel that? To me it gave that scene an air of let-down, rather than the kind of joyous possibility that the written version had.

Yes completely agree @AppropriateAdult i agree that with some tweaks, their relationship storyline could have been truer to the book without it taking any more screen time. And it’s hard to see how they will progress the rather twee ‘you’re my best friend’ line into the drinks that follow at the Ritz.