I looked forward to this series immensely after having followed the gorgeous and supremely talented actress Suranne Jones since Coronation Street, Vincent and Unforgiven. The trailers made it look really good. But what a disappointment! Suranne was good in it, as was most of the cast (special mention for Anne Reid and Bernard Hill). However the writer Gwyneth Hughes(?) had totally over-egged the pudding to a ridiculous degree. How could it be that so many people on the train in the first episode were connected not only to each other but the incident? There were far too many plots and sub-plots and while it was never confusing it was irritating. The intimation of a terrorist element was a complete red herring and seemed to me to serve no real purpose other than to muddy the waters. Another thing I disliked in this was the background guitar music trilling away and just annoying the hell out of me without adding anything to the atmosphere. I recorded the whole series and watched it over 3 nights and it felt like a chore (I did want to see how it panned out). Quite liked the surprise death of a main character-a brave move. Overall though -must do better and a lot more succinctly.
Review of Five Days
