Summary:

When one of Tom Delaney's daughters goes missing, he does everything possible to find her. Along the way, he uncovers some dark secrets from not only his dead wife's past, but from his closest friends. The plot has a lot of twists and hints that leave you wanting more after each episode.

Personal Opinion:

I will admit that this show caught my attention when I saw Michael C. Hall was involved. (Any Dexter fans out there?) Not only does he play a main character, but he was also an executive producer.
The show takes place in a gated community with many of the residents involved in it's dark secrets. I thought the pacing was good and there were some twists I didn't see coming. The ending summed things up nicely but it seems unlikely there will be a season two.
It really is a binge worthy season and you'll never guess who the killer is at the end!

**THE UGLY: 'SAFE'**

WRITING: 50
ACTING: 75
LOOK: 80
SOUND: 50
FEEL: 60
NOVELTY: 40
ENJOYMENT: 65
RE-WATCHABILITY: 60
INTRIGUE: 60
EXPECTATIONS: 60

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**The Good:**

It's oddly comical to watch the Marshall family try to solve the problem they have at hand, only to fall deeper into the home they've dug up for themselves.

Hall and Warren are great together, like two police officers in buddy cop movies.

Unlike other Coben crime series, Safe keeps the number of different plot strands at a minimum and develops each of them fairly evenly. All of them feel connected to the larger story.

If you stick around for the second half of the series, you'll be rewarded with growing intensity and a growing level of danger.

I like the director's decision to use extreme closeups of people's faces during emotionally intense moments. The technique captures every emotion effectively.

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**The Bad:**

The plot feels very generic, with genre cliches and typical Harlan Coben elements sprinkled everywhere. Coupled with a sluggish pace during the first half of the series, it never feels like it truly gets going before it's over.

There are plenty of narrative shortcuts thrown into the script to save time, even when it doesn't make sense from a real-life point of view.

A bit disappointed that the conclusion arrives with little proper build-up since the series develops other plots and red herrings until the last episode. There are no real clues dropped, meaning that it's almost impossible to work stuff out as you go along.

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**The Ugly:**

That's one of the rules of crime fiction broken.

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**VERDICT:**

_A rewarding slow-burner wanders through genre cliches and narrative shortcuts to arrive at a surprising conclusion._

**60% = :heavy_minus_sign: = UGLY**

A story about a gated community. Oh yes, such things are so common in the UK, aren't they? The story itself isn't so bad. Far-fetched, but that's what one expects from a TV drama. No, the real problem is the appalling acting. Every actor in this show is truly terrible. It's not that the acting is wooden. I could've coped with that. If you've seen the Spinal Tap movie you'll remember they wrote a musical about Jack the Ripper: Saucy Jack. Well this dross is about as close to Saucy Jack as it's possible to get. The acting reaches its nadir with cockney barrow boy knees up dahn the Old Kent Road character "Jojo". Who the hell is seriously called Jojo? This show was the acting equivalent of nails on a blackboard. Highly unpleasant.

Really good British drama theat keeps you interested right up to the last minutesof the last episode. I'd give in a 7/10, but if it wasn't for a very obvious character that served little purpose in the story other than to be the sinister bad guy I'd have given it a 10/10.

The charcter 'Bobby" was obviously written into the story to be the obligatory bad guy, but everything about him and his inclusion in the plot is full of holes so big you could drive a truck through. For example (spoiler alert)
[spoiler] 1) What did the girl and boy hope to acheve by confronting him? there were other they could have confronted on theirown doorstep.
2) How did Bobby manage to drive onto the 'secure estate' with complete impunity and exit during a crisis and the cops don't even know a thing about it?
3) After parking his car and walking unseen to the house - where was all the fire-starter explosive devices? In his pockets?
4) Killing was obviously easy for him... why kidnap the girl and then only decide to kill her when the cop chick shows up? Why not kill her in the fire with the other woman?
5) How would he have cleaned up the girls brains after shooting her - in his apartment?
6) How the hell did he actually kidnap the girl? He'd have to drag her through the nosey neighbourhood to his car and then drive off the estate. [/spoiler]

I have so many things to say about this and at the same time I have nothing. Nothing really sticked for a longer time with me. Most of these characters are not relateable in any way and you will forget them on the same day you finish watching Safe. At the same time, there are things that work here.

— Zoe Chahal. O M F G how bad is this woman? How can you cast someone with these facial features, accent and overall terrible acting? Every minute with her on the screen was terrible for me to live with. Insanely bad.
— Michael C. Hall - I don't know. First episode I felt 'lied to' with his accent and everything. But further the story went I felt more of him as a concerned father scared for his daugther than our good old psychopath...
— Overall story - I bet this has to be a great book. In books you may miss some hints and then be blown away with the final results. But here we are spoon fed some things early and as usual it all builds to the finale.
— Sophie... A PLUS.
— Pete & Jojo. Both stong male characters. Especially JoJo throws in some great laughs that at some point make you feel like it's an early Coen Brothers comedy.

Overall it has a nice detective drama approach, with twists and turns in each episode. Unfortunately falls short in casting, length and few too soon reveals of the final outcome. Could've been great, comes out as pretty average.