abbadon-hades
Someone said I should post my comment as a review, so here goes...There are so many procedurals,and cop shows out there,doing the same thing over and over again. This is not one of those regular TV- shows. Crime plays a part of course, but more than that, this is a series that is driven by character development. For each crime we also delve deeper into Quirke's family relations and history. There is a logical development in the way the story is built,so that the plots of the different episodes combine into a whole. And consequences are far from as clean cut, as it would have been in an ordinary cop-show. I have tremendous respect for Gabriel Byrne and Michael Gambon as actors, and I think this material may well have provided the foundation for some of the best acting of their career. The supporting cast is also uniformly excellent, and that nearly all actors in this series is Irish, also makes it that much more convincing.I enjoyed the mood set by the music,and the portrayal of the era. From Smoke-filled streets and bars, to the clothes they use, the cars they drive, and all the small details that make up this wonderful mini-series.
paul2001sw-1
The new BBC drama 'Quirke' takes us into postwar Ireland - seedy, drunken, dominated by the twin evils of the church and the wealthy and corrupt. It's a somewhat clichéd view, made palatable by the series' muted tone, although at times in the first episode I struggled to follow the softly spoken dialogue and relatively (for a murder drama) understated plot. Unlike many such series, there's an overall narrative as well as individual stories; the fact that Quirke's niece has a separate, personal connection to all three murders reduces the overall plausibility. The cast is an impressive one, but the scripts don't really call on them to do anything extraordinary; the detail with which their characters' feelings are observed is often weaker than its symbolic depiction (endless booze and cigarettes). To me, 'Quirke' fell between two stools: too low-key and gloomy to be fun family entertainment, but not truly deep either.
ray-cormick
How low is the lowest common denominator in this. John Banville seemed to me to be a writer of Ireland past and present that you might learn something from. Holy mother of God, Quirke is terrible. I've never seen such a transparent plot line, such poor and shallow acting from stellar marquee names, so many faux hospital passes. Can I write the next episode - just gotta check Wikipedia for some autopsy references and come up with a 'startling' revelation regarding a hard drinking long lost relative of some sort or the other and then mix it up with production values ranging from low to medium allied with an occasional exotic non-1950's sounding name and they're ye are Quirke , working title Dublin Dud.
jk-692-236394
Honestly I do not know they expect to get viewers on a regular basis with only 3 episodes? It did not play like a mini series or long movie. Was it suppose to? It is well done. Different and interesting. The acting was good. But I was sure this was a TV series. Three episodes does not make a TV series. I guess it was not meant to be more. This is from Wiki. Quirke is a British-Irish crime drama television series that was first broadcast on BBC One and RTÉ One in 2014. The three-part series is based on the books by John Banville, writing under the pseudonym Benjamin Black, and was adapted by Andrew Davies and Conor McPherson. I would like to see them actually turn this into a real series.
AD
