A Major Disappointment

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

This show had good production quality, and mostly really good actors, so I think that's why I felt so let down by the writing. My 5 year old nephew could have been a better detective than the characters in this show. Did they have a law enforcement consultant?! I understand everyone once in a while characters have to do dumb stuff, but this was too much. They didn't get super simple relations or they jumped to this conclusion that no one would have guessed, and it was still wrong. And then at the end the cop who was hell bent on persecuting her tryed to make a pass at her and she was all giggles about it. She was also cool with her ex just completely not believing her (and doing the worst detective job ever).

A lot of this show was shot in Bulgaria - makes sense since it's close to Turkey. I managed to wade through three episodes but I just can't force myself to inflict any more of this predictable nonsense on myself. I'm told that the cast contains some reasonable actors, so I can only assume that they're doing the best that they can with the clunky script - although that's being kind as the acting is wooden at best and everything is just so hammy and exaggerated. It's scary to think that there's going to be a second series of Absentia: can the other offerings really be that much worse or do people just have no sense of what makes a good show any more? Don't make my mistake - do something useful with the hours of your life that you'd otherwise waste on this pointless and artificial nonsense. Just one last question though: How do people get paid to write, stage and act in so much junk these days and how do I get into this "business" of making money from mediocrity? I doubt that I have any more talent than the cast of most of the pap that's currently being churned out - but I certainly don't have any less....

Huge holes. No character development. Lots of whining. No one actually deals with the emotional elephants in the rooms. Ridiculous birthday party fairy tale ending.

We did binge the entire series in a couple days. Parts are riveting but minor continuity glitches are distracting. Also everybody but "dad" speaks in a whisper or Batman growl. Just needed attention to some details to make it more believable. For instance: If you've been beat and kept in an aquarium for 6 years you still have the strength to climb up the side of a building and run cross country and only eat a candy bar with a swallow of water? Taking a breather and maybe a shower would have helped. Also the last time I tried my battery powered tape recorder that's been sitting in storage for around six years it needed new batteries.