I didn’t think it was THAT bad, even though I usually hate recent BBC1 9pm fare. Joe Ahearne is very good though. He’s probably the reason it stood out a little more. Seeing as you know him (I’m assuming he’s who you mean) do you happen to know why he never returned to Who after directing some of the best episodes of series 1? Interestingly enough his next job also starred Eccleston. Maybe he kind of took his side in the whole situation.

Imperfect, but decently done. I’ll be back for episode two.

NOTE: There are some spoilers in this comment.

I was in two minds about it because I think it was a drama with strong good and bad points. Overall, it made for a fairly-engaging hour but I wouldn’t call it “very good” and I think it had the potential to be so much better.

On the good side, Martin Shaw was great and the character he played was sympathetic and likeable. They managed to make him convincingly a committed Catholic without making him pious or holier than thou and I thought that was quite an achievement. I also thought that a few scenes were genuinely chilling, such as the moment when the possessed man attacked his daughter and the scenes in the sauna at the end.

On the other hand, there were so many things that seemed unexplained or just silly. Demonstrating the possessed father’s ungodliness by having him own a copy of the “Jerry Springer the Musical” CD was actually laughable. We were led to believe that the young Indian man’s homosexuality was a secret (the demon certainly suggested it was) but later on it became clear the clergy had always known about it and they said so in a way that suggested it had been open knowledge for a while. Also, there’s no way that little girl wouldn’t have been taken into police protection - her father had *assaulted* her for goodness sakes, they’re not going to do anything on his say so. If the father was possessed (and clearly knew it) why was he such a committed “atheist”; that made absolutely no sense at all and seemed to be just a way to have a dig at atheism. I was also a bit confused at the part near the end where the father told his daughter that it wasn’t him that was the problem but “you, it’s always been you”. Maybe that’ll become part of a series-wide story arc or maybe I missed something but it seemed to be leading to a twist (along with the Priest pointing-out that the girl was conceived around the time Mother Theresa died) which didn’t come.

So, overall, not too bad but must try harder. I might watch next week’s but I’m not going to put time aside for it.

> but later on it became clear the clergy had always known

They only found out when they caught Shaw exorcising him and had to explain (off-camera) why.

> I was also a bit confused at the part near the end where the father told his daughter that it wasn’t him that was the problem but “you, it’s always been you”.

Note her persistent odour…