hannemaria-lara Intelligent show that doesn't let a viewer off too easy. I love it, when a show doesn't assume that their viewers have intelligence of rice krispies. It leaves room for your own perception and insight. Single-handed is able to handle the ugly side of life without becoming cynical and that's extremely rare in TV nowadays.

w-e-fullerton This is a wonderful show with fantastic scenery. It reminds me of my trip to Ireland many years ago. The characters seem to be REAL PEOPLE and the scripting is really true to life. They are certainly not artificial as are the American actors that we have to put up with. The story lines are true to life. Even the bad characters are very well acted. I wish American TV would take a lesson from this program when they are making our shows. I believe that the Garda is depicted in a realistic fashion. Perhaps that is why I like it since my Grandfather was a Detective with the same kind of attributes I will watch it many times and I hope that you do also.

robert-temple-1 The Irish, like the Danes, live in a small country which has produced its fair share of theatre, film, and TV drama. This excellent RTE police series is no 'Celtic Twilight' story, but is instead a disturbing exploration of the under-surface of modern Irish society as it extends even to such a remote place as County Galway, beside the Atlantic Ocean. The hero of the series, superbly and quietly played by Owen McDonnell (who was born in Galway and has its soil in his bones), is a young sergeant in the Irish police, who are known as 'the Garda' (a Gaelic name). This review is of the entire 12 episodes produced so far, comprising Seasons One and Two. It is not known if there will be any more, but I hope so. It is a very absorbing series which goes at a gentle pace, revealing intrigues and crimes slowly, rather than at the breathless pace of a Hollywood film which has to squeeze everything into 90 minutes. McDonnell's father had been a senior Garda figure, and in Season One, McDonnell comes face to face with the fact that he had been dishonest and criminal in his job, as most of his colleagues had also been. McDonnell is a thoroughly honourable man struggling to keep his honest nose above sea level in this wholly corrupt place. The series is shot entirely on location and the scenery is remarkable for its bleak beauty, a nearly treeless landscape running down to a shattered sea and endless shimmering water dusted by drifting clouds, with spectacular sunsets. The area is extremely isolated and under-populated. The locals are deeply inbred and introverted, clannish, secretive, suspicious, brutal, and, well, Irish, which means they can also be charming and amusing while they are scheming against you. The wickedest character in the series is a perfect serpent, retired Garda Inspector Dennis Costello, played with sinuous menace and cunning by Sean McGinley. He runs the local pub called Mallons, a den of iniquity, scheming, and plotting. Everyone in the area seems consumed by greed, lust, perversity, or unnatural passions of one kind or another, and none of them are honest apart from stalwart Owen McDonnell, whose character is called Jack Driscoll. If anyone ever wondered how so many murders could possibly be committed in the small town of Oxford in order to justify the INSPECTOR MORSE series, try County Galway for limitless decadence. How can such a desolate place be seething with such much corruption, brutality, and quiet crime? The series is clearly meant to be a reflection upon contemporary Ireland, a country where all the politicians are said to be corrupt, where all the businessmen are said to be corrupt (and I have met some of those!), and where incest, rape, murder, brutality of every kind imaginable, and of course the sexual perversities and crimes of the Catholic clergy, are rampant. It is also a country where greed ran amok and resulted in the economic collapse from which Ireland is still struggling, with doubtful success, to make some kind of recovery. There are some powerful performances by supporting players in this series, especially the sinister and knowing mother of McDonnell, played by Ruth McCabe, who conveys as much by her eyes as many actors do when they scream. She refuses to condemn the immorality of her late husband and thinks her son is a fool for being such a 'good guy', which certainly is a new angle on the cozy mum theme, for she will sit down and have a nice cup of tea while justifying dishonesty and immorality. McDonnell's bewilderment and exasperation at the hypocrisy and dishonesty he finds on all sides never breaks him, but he looks sadder and sadder, and says a great deal when he does not speak, rather like those silent Danes in THE KILLING Part One (see my review). If the Irish can produce a series like this, they have not lost their touch. Let's have more.

sagei Surprisingly addictive.Ugly humanity set against beautiful landscape.The stories are almost unrelentingly bleak. People here don't magically turn around and do the right thing when push comes to shove. Instead they continue to show their true colours. No neat endings either. Welcome change from most dramas where writers always try to force redemption etc down your throat with all the subtlety of a shotgun blast to the face.No car chases, no csi voodoo, no sped-up hand to hand combat or parkour.Just a cop trying to do his job and still have something resembling a personal life. Sounds boring and yet the characters are so engaging it's hard not to get caught up in their struggle.Wish them well.Thank you.