Down Cemetery Road [SPOILERS]

[LushLemonTart]

Is there a thread yet?

Just finished watching the second episode. Wow it's good. I always love the leads anyway and yes it was a bit predictable but am hooked.

It's helped fill the Slow horses hole. Absolutely loved that. Tense ending but so clever.

Yes. Slow Horses work because despite everything, they are a team. A team of desperate individuals, but a team nonetheless at some level. And they are all quite likeable in their own ways. I’m cheering them on, however much they fuck up.

i don’t really care not any of the cemetery lane characters. Zoe is pretty self sufficient - she doesn’t need me to root for her. Sarah’s okay.. Everyone else just filler 🤷‍♀️

I’ve given up after ep3 too. My Apple TV free trial expired and it wasn’t worth extending it for DCR. I only got it for Slow Horses, which I will save and binge watch next time as it lost something the weekly drops this time I felt.

Totally agree about the weekly drops... all that suspense carefully built up then .... gone.

I’ve slogged through Ep 4 and I’m not sure I’ll bother again. Emma Thompson looks like she’s having fun but her character is so annoying. Ruth Wilson is either histrionic or totally flat and I just can’t feel engaged with her at all. Everyone else is a ludicrous stereotype.
I got totally confused by the three very similar looking black men but I do presume that was to obscure the identity of one of them.
I had a similar problem with Department Q with the same actress playing two different roles. That was a real ‘mess with your head’ move.
I do love Slow Horses though, even though it’s got a bit bonkers.

The three black men did not look facially similar.

The point was that they each looked as if they might (from a distance, in poor lighting) be related to one of the other two. The writers correctly estimated that the MN audience, on hearing one black man refer to his brother, would automatically assume that the next black man on screen must be the brother. As I’ve said, I thought it was clever.

But the rest just isn’t hitting the spot.

(And perhaps the writers might be surprised to find just how little sympathy there is for Downey amongst the audience. I’m certainly surprised.)

This

I thought it was fucking awful. Love Slow Horses, this was utter horse shit.

Yeah, about that 5 star Guardian review…

The first episode was dire, with a ridiculously cliched script - I couldn’t quite believe what I was watching based on that review.

By the second episode I was invested in Emma Thompson’s and Ruth Wilson’s characters, but the script is so badly written I just don’t think I can continue with it!

It's a bit meh. I was also fooled by the 3 similar men but then had the same issue 2 series ago in Shetland where every white man in it had the same brown hair cut in the same way, all the same height and build and same accent. And I think they were all wearing woolly jumpers because it was Shetland.

It's shaping up to put all the strands together, but there's a lot going on in a lot of different places and it's getting there far too slowly.

I'd still quite like Emma Thompson's hair though.

The same actress played the same character, young and old. Is that correct?
I can't say I noticed when I watched it probably because the storyline was a pile of shite and I was just willing it to end.

I don’t remember an actress playing two different roles in Dept Q!?

I may have completely forgotten, though …

I’m persisting with it, but for me it has the same problem as Slow Horses - constant low-level insult dialogue in place of real conflict which seems very trying after a short while (although it’s much worse in SH). DCR veers too much from serious to ridiculous (the ineffectual government man with glasses vs the posh one is just stupid). But I’m very aware I’m probably taking it too seriously! It just doesn’t seem to know what it is

My husband tells me I'm completely wrong and it was two different actresses so ignore me. I'm obviously even more face blind than I thought! 😂

😂

Ep 5 was actually pretty good. Maybe because fewer of the less good scenes and altogether less absurdist. People mostly behaving like people.

Any other fans of John Buchan here? Right at the start of this century I picked up a volume containing all his Richard Hannay novels in a second hand bookshop in Thurso - and completely fell in love. For about a decade they were my default comfort read. Anyhow …

We’ve just watched episode 4 and I’m really enjoying it!

I’m enjoying ET’s character and trying to piece together what’s going on. I’ve got theories about how the various strands of the story will pull together.

Loving this series

The government gifts are the worst part of it by far. Especially the supercilious one who seems to be in charge of it all. He is terribly miscast.

Irrationally annoyed by them getting on the sleeper train from Kings Cross when everyone knows it goes from Euston. Admittedly Euston is pig ugly.

Three episodes in and I was expecting better. More tension, some thrills. Was hoping to see more scenes with Sarah and Zoë. I have been a big fan of Emma Thompson for nearly forty years, but I agree that she isn’t quite right here. I am also really bored of seeing Adeel Akhtar everywhere, usually playing the same character. Likewise, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett does nothing for me. I think the casting director needs to look for a more suitable job.

Ep 6 was quite fun, in a seen everything here before but never mind sort of way. Truthfully not a single original moment, but passed the time. And a nice build up to next week.

The kid being on an island makes sense now. Hamza went there by helicopter.

I was very distracted by the fishing village clearly being in Cornwall not Scotland!

This episode was a bit better and I agree with what others have said that it’s better when the two women are together, possibly because Michael is just unbelievably boring and vanilla as a character and Amos doesn’t have a lot of chat 🤣.

Downey bores me and Amos is also flat, I don’t think the actors are skilled enough to make their characters any more than one-dimensional. Who is Michael?

Michael Downey …

Contrary to the majority view here, I’m finding Amos the most interesting to watch.

And I hope Nurse Steph (Dinah’s guardian) is given a more active role once they all get to the island.

But really, none of the actors are being stretched by their roles here, and there’s nothing new for viewers.