Decided to get a TV license again and give some BBC stuff a try, this was well worth watching, very binge-worthy:
I'm a fan of police/detective stuff and this being based on the true story of the biggest (at the time) robbery in the world makes it pretty interesting/compelling viewing regardless.
Some minor gripes (I loved the show so this isn't meant to take away too much for that, it's well worth watching); Noye's character is too nice, he's portrayed almost like some sort of young and more successful Del Boy type... the real Noye seems like a much nastier/angry individual who has flipped out and killed people in the heat of the moment, both related to this story and his known murder many years later where he stabbed a complete stranger to death in a road rage incident.
Every criminal with a regional accent seems to be portrayed as some sort of class warrior and has something to say about England being divided by class; yes Mr Writer we get the really subtle message/subtext you're trying to put across here. They could have just left things like the scene with the solicitor (a fictional character sort of based on a real person) putting a ring into the mud in an Eastern part of the Thames in... instead, there is a lot of surplus dialogue about it to the point that it becomes a bit distracting at times.
Another fictional character they've added is the female detective and of course, she is portrayed as the (now so standard it's become a bit of a trope) "girl boss" type which allows for a bit of forced commentary not just about class (again) but also sexism in the 80s. Some of it gets a bit cliched like girl boss detective demands that she switches seats and is allowed to drive in the middle of a surveillance operation, girl boss, of course, makes some fundamental discoveries that are key to the case etc. It just seems a bit odd given this is a real story involving real people that they just make up a key member of the police team.
It does have the potential for a second season too, there are a few glimpses of another character in Spain and it's not clear who he is...
I'm a fan of police/detective stuff and this being based on the true story of the biggest (at the time) robbery in the world makes it pretty interesting/compelling viewing regardless.
Some minor gripes (I loved the show so this isn't meant to take away too much for that, it's well worth watching); Noye's character is too nice, he's portrayed almost like some sort of young and more successful Del Boy type... the real Noye seems like a much nastier/angry individual who has flipped out and killed people in the heat of the moment, both related to this story and his known murder many years later where he stabbed a complete stranger to death in a road rage incident.
Every criminal with a regional accent seems to be portrayed as some sort of class warrior and has something to say about England being divided by class; yes Mr Writer we get the really subtle message/subtext you're trying to put across here. They could have just left things like the scene with the solicitor (a fictional character sort of based on a real person) putting a ring into the mud in an Eastern part of the Thames in... instead, there is a lot of surplus dialogue about it to the point that it becomes a bit distracting at times.
Another fictional character they've added is the female detective and of course, she is portrayed as the (now so standard it's become a bit of a trope) "girl boss" type which allows for a bit of forced commentary not just about class (again) but also sexism in the 80s. Some of it gets a bit cliched like girl boss detective demands that she switches seats and is allowed to drive in the middle of a surveillance operation, girl boss, of course, makes some fundamental discoveries that are key to the case etc. It just seems a bit odd given this is a real story involving real people that they just make up a key member of the police team.
It does have the potential for a second season too, there are a few glimpses of another character in Spain and it's not clear who he is...