Trinity (2009) User Reviews

Quality drama

[alainenglish · 6/10 · 9 October 2009]

Famously delayed after being put off the schedules to make way for Paris Hilton's reality show, in late September this year "Trinity" finally hit our TV screens on ITV2.

The show is set in Trinity, a university-cum-playground for the wealthy elite. Sinister figures like the dean Professor Maltravers (Charles Dance), spoilt and scheming Dorian (Christian Cooke) and snobbish sex-bomb Rosalind (Isabella Calthorpe) routinely stalk it's pristine corridors. The university, in an attempt to modernise, has thrown it's doors open to accommodate students from "the lower classes". This means characters like streetwise Theo Mackenzie (Reggie Yates), dotty Welsh girl Maddy (Elen Rhys) and village idiots Angus and Raj (Mark Wood and Arnab Chanda) can enter into the fray.

However, as someone succinctly puts it, "this college is rotten - from the bottom to the very top" and Maltravers and Dorian are anxious to protect the secrets of the mysterious Dandelion Club before all hell breaks loose in the college...

A suspenseful and generallly well-acted series so far, only failing in the poorly scriptly comedy segments, which are badly written and feature an excess of nudity.

That aside, this is still good quality drama.

Weirdly out of date, even by 2009 standards

[altereggo123 · 2/10 · 12 July 2020]

My initial reaction was that this 1980s teen mystery hadn't held up very well. But apparently it was made in 2009. I'm not sure whom it was aimed at, but certainly not thinking adults. The characters are cartoonishly one-dimensional, the dialogue insipid, the depiction of college life bizarre. Sad that Charles Dance and Claire Skinner had to lend their talents to this. It's categorized as comedy, drama and mystery, but I see no sign of the first two. As for the third, the only reason I gave it two stars instead of one was that it does begin with a mystery--a sudden death, some unanswered questions--but spare yourself. This mystery is best left unsolved.

A laudable effort

[oloiatao · 30 September 2015]

Dear Charles,

Once again I watched something simply because you were in it, and I'm compelled to say, day-um, you're *good.* Of course, my love for you makes me a less-than-objective reviewer. But even adjusted for infatuation, your score is stratospheric. Damn curve- raiser, your castmates grumble. With good reason.

It's rotten bad luck the series wasn't renewed. But it's not your fault. It's the writers, bless their hearts.

I think what they meant to do was to create a quirky dramedy in the fashion of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Unfortunately, they made several key errors:

1. While the mystery was certainly compelling enough to keep viewers tuning in, it was strung out too long. If the writers had moved some of the revelations into earlier episodes, viewer appetites would have been whetted for more. Instead, they became frustrated and gave up.

2. The unlikeable characters--Dorian, Maltravers--were at first too unpleasant for a viewer to endure very long. Yes, these characters were eventually revealed to have redeeming features, but too late and too little.

3. Lacking better information about the role it played in the project, the injunction to "protect the Dandelion Club" became annoyingly nonsensical.

4. It wasn't clear how seriously the viewer was meant to take certain aspects of the plot. Yes, viewers yearn for television which does not pander to the lowest common intellect. But there's a big difference between being clever and being impenetrably obscure. Again, more information provided earlier in the series would have been helpful.

Darling Charles, my love for you is true. I'll always cherish the moments Maltravers was on screen because of your delicious performance. The urgency of your search of the "statue" for the hourglass, the gusto with which you swung that golf club--moments I will treasure forever.

I sympathize with your anger. It *was* incredibly insulting to postpone your program in favor of Paris Hilton. But it was also a sound business decision, as was the decision to give up on "Trinity."

However, there's a golden lion-ing to even the darkest of clouds: had ITV2 ordered more "Trinity" your schedule might not have permitted you to play Tywin Lannister in "Game of Thrones." And had you not played Tywin, I might not have ever come to love you. So. In the end, you're better off this way. Or in the words of a bumper sticker I saw recently "manure happens."

Love always,

Oloiatao