I'm writing this having revisited this show to watch it's opening double episode of it's third season, The Star Of The Orient.
Nothing has improved. Not the direction, the writing nor the acting. This episode shows all this clichéd, witless programmes' weaknesses.
The writing is flaccid. When even train staff have to rely on passengers to identify a problem with the train, it's a red flag the writers have decided its audience are idiots. The writers have Sister Boniface's parents ask her to travel by train during "the worst Winter on record" to cook for them just to set a murder on a train. Throughout this dragging story the writing matches the drudgery of this stale series.
Worse than the clunky writing is the plodding direction which hopefully explains the limp, stagey acting. Imagine a troupe of volunteers told to put on a show and you get a sense of how awful the character portrayals really are, like talentless hacks desperate to get attention. Quite why any professional actor would want to get noticed in this drearily gruelling dross I've no idea.
The production standards are often too lame to be laughable, like they trained on the comedy Acorn Antiques but never got the joke.
For example, the reason you hear the footsteps so loudly is because there aren't even the production standards to lay carpet to damp down the noise of moving around the set. Almost every scene is cluttered by needless noise or no relevant background noise. Which certainly explains the half-baked recreation of the worst Winter on record. Apart from verbal references and some snow-spray there's no suggestion of the extreme weather.
Who thought these team had the talent to even try?
Nothing has improved. Not the direction, the writing nor the acting. This episode shows all this clichéd, witless programmes' weaknesses.
The writing is flaccid. When even train staff have to rely on passengers to identify a problem with the train, it's a red flag the writers have decided its audience are idiots. The writers have Sister Boniface's parents ask her to travel by train during "the worst Winter on record" to cook for them just to set a murder on a train. Throughout this dragging story the writing matches the drudgery of this stale series.
Worse than the clunky writing is the plodding direction which hopefully explains the limp, stagey acting. Imagine a troupe of volunteers told to put on a show and you get a sense of how awful the character portrayals really are, like talentless hacks desperate to get attention. Quite why any professional actor would want to get noticed in this drearily gruelling dross I've no idea.
The production standards are often too lame to be laughable, like they trained on the comedy Acorn Antiques but never got the joke.
For example, the reason you hear the footsteps so loudly is because there aren't even the production standards to lay carpet to damp down the noise of moving around the set. Almost every scene is cluttered by needless noise or no relevant background noise. Which certainly explains the half-baked recreation of the worst Winter on record. Apart from verbal references and some snow-spray there's no suggestion of the extreme weather.
Who thought these team had the talent to even try?
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