Mayday

An interesting, cretinous little drama of people behaving badly. This series is not a police procedural and not much of a "who done it". There is a murder but it is a plot device to illustrate the banal evil of this village's occupants. The story could have been predicated on any antisocial victim crime. The murder is just a larger crime topping off a general day to day stream of common human venality, delusion and dishonesty. It is an examination of an insular community of characterless cretins who suspect each other of the crime. The village fails as a caring community in the face of the tragic murder of a teenager. Parents fail children, wives fail husbands, brothers and sisters fail each other, and vice-versa. It is all rather predictable and static. All of the characters will act out of self interest and self protection which results in an overwhelming lack of suspense. Unfortunately, no one is very sympathetic or even likable. I suppose the drama could be an interesting examination of how low many people will go to maintain an illusion of the happy family life status quo. Anything goes as long as the fantasy of "happy families" is sustained. OK, if you like that sort of thing. The acting was fine, everyone was suitably dishonest and self involved. The country village is attractive and a little unsettling. The music is eerily atmospheric. I think the attempt to deliver a pagan, nature spirited, Wiccan-like veneer to the characters and events failed in it's lack of subtlety. Oh, I did like the dog. This series is suitable for temporary rental.

What a wonderful multidimensional film. THe film was filled with complex human interaction. T he plot which at first seemed simple turned out to be elegant in design. It was a real treasure to be found by accident while I was surfing the Internet for a different British film. A good surprise and value. I liked it.

Interesting

Usually if I watch to the end the film or series rates at least a three. In no way can Mayday be compared to Broadchurch.

A great mystery & suspense

As good as Broadchurch excellent movie

suspense, held your attention

Three and a half stars.This was very engaging. I liked how it was a whodunnit that was interested in the effect of the crime on the local population rather than the police efforts to find the culprit. That was different. It held my interest throughout. It was very reminiscent of Twin Peaks: atmospheric, nice scenery, prominent high school nice girl gets murdered to start off the action, quirky residents hiding secrets, strange occult things going on in the nearby woods to contrast structured modern life. I was actually able to predict certain plot developments by thinking about analogous situations in Twin Peaks. But, even more so than Twin Peaks, it also had a fundamentally nasty and extremely negative opinion of humanity, and I thought this was a huge weakness. Most of the townsfolk turn out to have no redeeming qualities. They're mean, selfish and lawless, constantly flying off the handle to attack each other. Some of this is completely gratuitous, not advancing the plot in any real way, just showing that people are bad. And the ultimate resolution felt unsatisfying on various levels.Mild spoilers.The show deploys the oft-used lazy writing trick of creating twists by having people act out of character, with no foreshadowing to justify the behavior, often in a way that destroys the motivation for their earlier behavior which then makes no sense in the context of what we learn later. The last episode is full of this. I also didn't like how family was consistently shown as causing bad behavior, and how prominently it indulges the desire for revenge, even in the supposedly "good guys." In contrast, there were a variety of potentially positive traits that were thrown out but then not seriously developed. I did like the relationship between the two main teenagers however.I seem to be dwelling on what I didn't like rather than what I did, and that is perhaps telling. There was a good setup and initial development, which led me to buy into it as a good show. But then they gradually lost it, and I was left disappointed that they didn't really deliver on the early promise. Still, not a bad show. I'd recommend giving it a shot.

I get weary of endless murder mysteries, investigated by a quick thinking inspector with a few quirks, assisted by his plucky but not so bright sergeant...Mayday is a refreshing change and will keep you guessing. There are no wonderful police, in fact quite the opposite. There is a selection of dysfunctional characters (who did it - or was it done at all?) and just a little mystical ingredients sprinkled in. You'll have to finish the story yourself, of course.Well worth watching.

My favourite suspense serial for many years, thanks partly to the unusual format of broadcasting the whole thing over five consecutive nights, thereby avoiding the usual breaks in the suspense when weekly intervals are used. I would like to see more of this particular format used.serials. My criticism of Mayday is that too many loose threads were left hanging. What happened about the killing of Seth is a particular annoyance. however, I accept this as just part of a fairly baffling mystery, which was plainly intended to leave viewers guessing.

A bit laborius and far too long. The entire tale could have been told and portrayed in half the time. There was also a lot of unexplained phenomena such as the stones/pebbles falling from apparently on high! However, it had it's interesting moments and an underlying malevolence that kept you guessing as to the real culprits. I would not recommend to my closest friends, but if you have five hours to kill....go for it!

Bought 2nd hand - so good value for a night's viewing in Lockdown!

I bought this mainly because Peter Firth was in it. The story tends to plod along with a number of suspects but we don't find out the real murderer until the very end and it is impossible to guess who it is. The program is a good character study but I think some of the characters' stories are left unfinished, especially Peter Firth's character. I would recommend this to anyone who likes a murder mystery and/or character-driven stories.