free download
Hey everyone! go to www.youtube.com and download part 1 of secret smile now! part 2 should hopefully be up soon.
shareI have it all from 'Freeview' digital TV in non-squeezed[!] 16:9 widescreen from the ITV Premiere broadcast to Double Layer DVD via HDD neatly edited with no sponsor's plugs nor other commercials [but chaptered at each break] and no superfluous and redundant 'what-happened-last-time' recap; but why I went to all this effort for nothing when as I discovered:-
"In retrospect the biggest point of interest in this run of the mill psycho infiltrates a loving family and destroys them from within thriller was the casting of David Tennant which gave Doctor Who fans a preview of the new leading man in the Tardis a few weeks before his Christmas Day debut.
Admittedly Tennant was a suitably chilling as the nice boy on the surface and looney sociopath underneath but was let down mainly by the colourless, flat direction that ITV have become a master of in recent years (apart from the higher merit dramas directed by Adrian Shergold) and a script, adapted from Nicci French's best selling novel, which trod familiar ground and broke none new.
Most of the cast functioned well in their clichéd roles, but Claire Goose was woefully misused with a lifeless and drab apathetic character. The first episode established the premise in double quick time before the first ad break. Kate Ashfield played a successful architect, Miranda, who picks up the oddly named Brendan Block (no, not the DJ, that's Brandon), played by the gangly-limbed Tennant, and has a short ten-day fling with him before she dumps him for becoming too possessive, nosey and plain weird. In the blink of an eye he has hooked up with her neurotic younger sister (Claire Goose) and after only three weeks together, they become engaged.
Block is welcomed into the bosom of the two sister's family and very quickly engineers a determined onslaught against her until she is alienated from her friends and family resulting in the suicide of her manic depressive younger brother. A control freak he most certainly is. The second episode went further in to the realms of ridiculousness with Block dumping Miranda's sister and marrying and murdering [her (Miranda's) best friend] for her money.
The first episode enjoyed very healthy ratings for a Monday night drama, with just over seven million viewers tuning in. This was probably largely due to lead actor David Tennant and curious viewers wanting to catch a glimpse of the tenth Timelord handled a villainous role.
There was something that echoed with a young Anthony Perkins (or even a young version of Talking Heads lead singer David Byrne) in Tennant's looks and performance that helped the viewer through the many plot holes and sadly predictable script. The production will perhaps best be remembered, not for its obligatory and predictable twist ending, but for helping to demonstrate Tennant's palette of characterisation, ability to imbue the flattest line of dialogue with intrigue and the relative ease that he is able to jump from moody and menacing to sweetness and light in just one scene (and for having a crack at being a baddie for a change). These are all attributes that will serve the actor well in what will hopefully be a long and successful voyage in the police box shaped time machine."
http://www.action-tv.org.uk/guides/secretsmile.htm
[I subsequently tried to over-write the disc forgetting that I'd stupidly wasted a DVD+R DL and not used a DVD-RW as I had meant to]
"Oh look - a lovely spider! And it's eating a butterfly!"
'' ,,