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Dublin Murders is a new drama, set in 2006, based on the books by Tana French, and adapted by Sarah Phelps, who also adapted the recent Agatha Christie dramas The ABC Murders, The Witness For The Prosecution and Ordeal by Innocence.
The first episode starts off all very po-faced with some bizarre conversation between a criminal and cop Cassie Maddox (Sarah Greene), before moving on to Cassie investigating a murder in a Dublin convenience store with partner Rob Reilly (Killian Scott). However, that’s an introductory scene before we get to the main act, which features a woman murdered in the woods… but how does that relate to another murder, in the same area, from 1985?
Well, that’s what the story will begin to tell, but as a drama, itself, it did nothing out of the ordinary that we’ve seen in any cop drama, and the two leads aren’t massively likeable. You also feel like you’re counting the minutes until they both end up in bed together. I’ve never read the books, but I’d bet still bet my house on it happening, and even if they don’t do the horizontal mambo in print, Sarah Phelps has form for changing the outcome of a novel, as we know from changing the killer in the aforementioned Ordeal by Innocence.
Another problem with this programme, for me at least, is that the preview I watched of the first episode does not have subtitles, and the Irish accents in this drama are incredibly strong. Hence, I’ll watch the second episode (broadcast the following day, and which concludes this first story) as it’s broadcast so I can put the subtitles on.
UPDATE: Episode 2 has now been on, and what a load of utter po-faced confusing crap that was. Rob has a past: he was one of those kids from the forest back in 1985… I think. Cassie has a past: She’s really called Lexie and was on a different surveillance job back then… or is Cassie her real name, and Lexie was the faked name for that job? Well, this episode was confusing me all over the place, and not a single bit of it was interesting. Whatever story this drama is trying to tell, it’s incredibly dull and I have no interest in continuing to watch it. I thought this 8-episode series was four lots of two-parters, but it’s not, and tonight’s episode just tried to weave more tales amongst itself, but it only succeeded in tying itself in knots. I’m out.
What did you think? Let me know in the comments below.
Dublin Murders begins on BBC1 tonight at 9pm, and is shown weekly on Monday and Tuesdays at 9pm. It’s is available to pre-order on DVD, ahead of its release on November 11th.
After broadcast, each episode will be on the BBC iPlayer.
Episode 1 Score: 4/10
Episode 2 Score: 0/10
Director: Saul Dibb
Producer: Carmel Maloney
Writer: Sarah Phelps
Cast:
Cassie Maddox: Sarah Greene
Rob Reilly: Killian Scott
Dr Cooper: Ned Dennehy
Sam O’Neill: Moe Dunford
Dr Mark Hanley: Jonathan Forbes
Damien Donnelly: Jonny Holden
Jonathan Devlin: Peter McDonald
Rosalind Devlin: Leah McNamara
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.