The Long Call (2021)

Watchseries; It just about held my interest to the end, but too many flaws to bring it to anything I would recommend. DI Venn not really convincing as a character, nor is his relationship with the weird sect. And the sect itself, while containing elements that are certainly realistic, just didn't hold together somehow. I think my 5 may be a bit generous, but it was mildly entertaining.

It just about held my interest to the end, but too many flaws to bring it to anything I would recommend. DI Venn not really convincing as a character, nor is his relationship with the weird sect. And the sect itself, while containing elements that are certainly realistic, just didn't hold together somehow. I think my 5 may be a bit generous, but it was mildly entertaining.

The Long Call watchseries. Following on from fare better crime series like Manhunter this is far from gripping. There is little suspense or a driving story line and I feel little empathy with any of the characters. The best thing about it are the locations.

Given the BBC's well known mania for diversity, we've been wondering when they would get around to producing a gay detective show, and this one seems to be worth waiting for. The episodes we've watched were well done, and contain the usual number of red herrings to mislead us.

The two men make an interesting couple although one could wish that Jonathan wasn't too lazy to shave. We get tired of seeing scruff everywhere we look, these days.

This is a new crime drama from the reigning queen, Ann Cleeves who has given us "Vera" and "Shetland", Vera is set in Northumberlandshire, Shetland on the islands and now The Long Call (TLC) on the north coast of Devonshire.

The cast for season one includes Bed Aldridge, Juliette Stevenson, Martin Shaw, Neil Morrissey, Alan Williams and many more, they are major actors and expect major parts and the acting is very good. Kudos to the casting director. I hope BAFTA looks at this series for awards.

It is a slow burn, it's not one solved case per episode but one case over four episodes. It's tough to maintain viewer interest and glad they released it over four nights. The creator and producers should look at whether one story over two episodes or one 90 minute episode works best for future seasons.

DI Matthew Venn is not DCI Vera Stanhope (Vera) or DI Jimmy Perez (Shetland), he's younger and university educated and works collaboratively with his team. Venn is new and some have commented that he needs to be stronger, but he was raised in a religious community where members listen a lot as his mother pointed out. DCI Stanhope and DI Perez started out rocky and developed their TV personas.

Some of the younger actors are trying to do a regional or other accent and it's not working, it comes across mumbly and not clear. I was hoping for subtitles to understand some of the dialogue. The Incident Room at the police station is too big, the staff get lost and the sound isn't consistent. In general Ben Aldridge is the easiest to understand.

The other is that British crime dramas get exported to other countries and the British are great for acronyms and they don't realize that the whole world doesn't understand their acronyms. Speaking and understanding English doesn't mean understanding all the police acronyms. Season 6, Episode 1 of the great series "Line of Duty" was full of so many Met Police acronyms that Esquire Magazine (US) put out a translation page. At one point DI Venn tells his staff to check with the FLO in the child death, FLO is a Family Liaison Officer, a police officer assigned to a family.

Matthew's morning swims I saw as an homage to the Italian series "Montalbano", where police Commissioner Salvo Montalbano is often seen swimming each morning in the Mediterranean near his home.

These are minor problems that can be resolved. I hope season 2 is more focused on the crimes and less on the families, Here's hoping it's renewed for many more seasons.

I waited until i had watched all four episodes before writing a comment here.

Like any first series it suffers from uncertain characterisations and exposition.

First the negatives:

1. The photography - the excessive closeups and blurred backgrounds just serve to distance the audience. This style is a fad at the moment and not one I like.

2. there was definitely a problem with the sound. The actors seem to have been miked too closely resulting in a muffled unclear sound that was hard to understand much of the time. The sound needs to be re-equalised to push out the voice component.

3. the production design was weird. The police offices were like a lost set from Star Trekâ„¢.

4. the plot was ultimately too easy and telegraphed too obviously. I guessed who and why well before the end of the first episode.

BUT despite this some of this series was gripping. Especially the last episode. The performances finally were allowed to show through. And it is for this episode that I gave the series an 8 out of 10.

I hope there is a second series. The show has promise. None of the issues with the first series are unfixable. Ann Cleeves is a brilliant writer and it shows in parts of The Long Call.

I wanted to like this but I struggled to get through the first episode and won't be watching any more.

The acting is stilted with pregnant pauses everywhere they aren't needed. This only serves to frustrate the viewer where they are trying to amp up the tension. The acting is weak and the story is weaker. I can't work out how the lead character became the 'boss', if you said boo he'd burst in to tears and his gay relationship isn't convincing, it feels forced.

The writing is lacking, I kept trying to will them to ask proper questions any cop would ask in an interview and obvious ones just weren't brought up.

Every scene tried to either be arty or tense and it becomes draining after a while. It never flowed and let the story unfold, just dreary and insipid.

It's a 3 for the scenery and the female cop who seems to be more interesting than the rest, if only she wouldn't mumble...