I love James Nessbit and I love Charlotte Wakefield.
However I thought this was a very poor dramatisation.
Would Mike Swift just go 'oh well' when the Iranian Doctor got killed in front of him, and would he just look bemused when he found his son very very dead
No ??... I didn't think so either :)
Loss has no predictable reaction. The fact that there was no music or sound at all in the scene just after Aliya was killed and when he found his son was meant to represent the numbness that Mike was feeling. As i've said before, not everybody bursts into tears when they lose somebody.
That was textbook.
Everybody reacts differently.
Some become apathetic, like Mike. He was subjected to a lot of emotional trauma all at ones and simply shut down.
Ok I may be wrong, but it didn't look convincing to me. I really looked forward to this series, and I have to say I was dissapointed.
But never mind :)
I interpreted his reaction to the killing of Alyia as being recognition of his own role in the events. He was warned multiple times that he was putting her in danger but he still put his own feelings first. I think that's why the shooter (can't remember the character's name) almost sqaures off to Mike after the killing. It's as if to say to Mike "you're responsible for her death, not us."
I think it's that sense of responsibility that feeds into his reaction to his own son's death, and the need to blame Danny at the funeral.
My two cents, anyway.
Like yourself, I was looking forward to this. I did enjoy the drama overall but it was patchy. I don't think it ever measured up to the power of the opening scenes.
I don't think that what we saw on Mike's face was a look of "oh well" or bemusement. It was resignation - the realisation that the war destroys everything. All that Mike ever loved has been taken from him. In parallel, Danny and Lee have also been degraded - Danny is the last to realise this but he has his moment of recognition when he tries to justify his position in the final scene. The occupation (of Iraq) and their occupation (soldiers/private army) have damaged them.
Sorry to differ, but I don't think this was not "a very poor dramatisation" at all. I though it was genuinely moving, thoughtful, well-acted and well-written - an excellent piece.
OK we agree to disagree. I was very much looking forward to it and was dissapointed, but if you enjoyed it thats fine.
It's all about the eye of the beholder :)
I like some of the points raised in that the kid was trying to make a point which is why he did it in front of Mike. I find it very unlikely that a battle experienced Colour Seargent would give him the pleasure of an emotional response, IMO what Mike expressed with his apparent non-chalance was that he wasn't going to give him the reaction the act was supposed to bring out.
Eh, I also thought the character underreacted to losing his lover and son in the same day. He didn't even look super fraught or devastated at the funeral, and the fact that he was able to ask Danny what happened to him was surprising. How did he even have room to think of Danny's state of mind? It's possible, in order to distract himself, but I found it underplayed. Then again, I found Mike's son's subplot to be rather manipulative. In spite of the good stories, how many times had he heard of the horrors of war? Still the kid INSISTED on becoming a soldier. Unsurprisingly, his father wasn't always around to support him, so his dad could have the added guilt of not being there when the boy was reaching out for help. -_- To me, the son was just a scared, foolish kid, and not a well-drawn character.
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