The Victim follows ITV’s recent Cheat as being a four-part drama spread out over four consecutive nights, which is much better than putting it out over the same number of weeks, and expecting viewers to keep up with everything, even though that’s how it was done in the olden days (before Netflix).
Early on, it all goes a bit ‘Scream’ as a man gets attacked on Halloween, the man in question being Craig Myers (James Harkness) who killed Anna Dean’s (Kelly Macdonald – T2 Trainspotting) son 15 years earlier. The Number One suspect is Anna for having given away this new identity, but did she do it? Well, don’t ask me. I’ve no idea. I’m only at the first episode and it’s a four-parter as I already told you.
Seriously, though, this has echoes of the murder of toddler James Bulger, back in 1993, whose killers were since given new identities, but there’s always going to be people out there who’ll want to reveal those identities to the world. Anna’s son, Liam, was 9 at the time of his murder, but the point remains the same.
The premise in this drama is that Craig is not child killer Eddie J Turner, and that someone has posted Craig’s picture online and – as is the way with Facebook – moron after moron has shared the fake news until the lie is seen as the truth. Or is it him? I’m getting a headache and need a lie down.
Either way, this first episode is certainly better than The Widow, which has just started at the same time on ITV.
During the first episode, you will get the answers to some of the questions posed so far (and even if you think you’ve got an answer on some elements, things might actually change), but I’m not going to spill the beans here, because (a) that would be a waste of beans, and (b) that’s what the iPlayer is for.
However, one thing that IS a plus is that the ‘Next Time’ plays out in bits during the end credits, which means that the ever anally-irritating continuity announcers will have to finally shut the hell up for a change.
UPDATE Episode 2 (includes spoilers, so… a spoiler header):
The first episode showed that Anna had blabbed that Craig Myers is Eddie J Turner, and left it up to vigilantes to sort him out. As such, it’s not Craig who’s on trial, but Anna, since he’s been left with severe injuries and even though Anna confessed to her family that she let this slip out, will the court case conclude with her guilt or innocence?
Mo (Pooky Quensel) has, over the years, been cross-referencing a ton of names with the details of Eddie J Turner, and she’s certain that Craig Myers is the right man.
The ‘is he/isn’t he’ is a very interesting part of the plot – with his girlfriend Rebecca (Karla Crome – You, Me and the Apocalypse) also not very sure, but elsewhere there’s a sub-plot about DI Grover’s (John Hannah) past, which he refers to in episode 2 as just “allegations” and how you need evidence (the key about this entire series, of course), but it’s not really concerning me and it’s certainly not necessary.
The more I get into this, the more I find it fascinating the way it jumps back as it tells the story in retrospect, while the court case carries on in the ‘present day’.
However, for the most part, this episode felt more ‘filler’ than ‘thriller’, since part of it saw Anna in the dock, while for the rest of the time, it felt like an age to get to the point where the real Eddie would meet his social worker at the cafe under surveillance by Mo, but was it Craig? …. NO! It was his mate, Tom!
Well, the verdict was given out early on in this episode, and it was either innocent or guilty – you’ll have to watch it to find that one out.
There was also a powerful meeting between Anna and Craig, in an attempt for her to apologise to him about blabbing his name online in the mistaken belief that he was Eddie J Turner, but then came revelations that… confused the hell out of me.
Beyond all this, there was the obvious drama/Hollywood trope where, in this case, Christian was about to knife Craig’s friend, in the understanding he was Eddie J Turner, but was stopped just as the very last micro-second.
The meeting is a bit like the importance of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro meeting in Heat, but a highly implausible meeting.
Overall, though, Kelly Macdonald has come out of this very well, and I can see this making her a lead in a lot more big-name dramas on TV. Sheridan Smith could certainly do with a bit of time off…
PS. As I watched the finale, I thought: And maybe I zoned out for a moment during this series, but why was Napier a bad guy? It wasn’t him who killed Liam. And there was another guy who seemed thrown into the mix for no apparent reason, who knew Anna was a nurse but that she was never at her job. What was that guy all about? There seemed to be way too many characters.
I thought it was just me, but on the night of the first episode, Vanessa Saxton summed it up for me:
Director: Niall MacCormick
Producer: Jenny Frayn
Writer: Rob Williams
Cast:
Anna Dean: Kelly Macdonald
Steven Grover: John Hannah
Craig Myers: James Harkness
Tom Carpenter: John Scougall
Lenny Dean: Jamie Sives
Rebecca Myers: Karla Crome
Solomon Mishra: Ramon Tikaram
Mo: Pooky Quensel
Danny Callaghan: Andrew Rothney
DS Lisa Harvey: Joanne Thomson
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.
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The Victim follows ITV’s recent Cheat as being a four-part drama spread out over four consecutive nights, which is much better than putting it out over the same number of weeks, and expecting viewers to keep up with everything, even though that’s how it was done in the olden days (before Netflix).