Disappointed in series two

I was not really overwhelmed with the first series; the horror elements, if you can call them that, were extremely derivative and predictable, if not boring. But behind it all there seems to have been a nice mythology, and it had some likeable characters, so I kept watching anyway.

But series two has been a complete dud for me so far. Mainly because those two redeeming qualities were apparently entirely cut from the show. All marginally interesting characters were replaced with cookie-cutter stereotypes that you are bored with after their first 5 minutes on screen, before they become properly annoying. And the whole Bedlam/Bettany mythology, while it was anything but original in the first series, they at least sticked with it. Now, they don't even try to have it make any sense anymore. Every "haunting of the week" is carbon-copied from one or several old horror films, with no effort at all going into putting them in context with the show or connecting it to its own mythology.

It's all just disconnected, cheap effects that aren't even superficially scary, because you always know exactly what's coming. Series one had that too, but it had something more that kept you watching through the drivel. Now, the episode cast lack any character or motivation, their actions make no sense, and what happens is entirely predictable. Out of the seemingly hundreds of hauntings and strange occurences and twists shown so far this series, there hasn't been a single one that hasn't become a cliché decades ago.

I must say that I was really surprised to see that series two was written by the same authors as series one, because a mediocre but watchable show has been turned into a dud from one year to the other. I'm a bad critic because I'm too nice, I'm always very reluctant to criticise a work (or the creators for it), as long as I can feel that there was someone who cared, and put their heart and soul in it. But if there's ever been an example of "phoning it in," this is it. Four hours, and I've yet to find an original thought in these scripts. Two thumbs down. I'm not even sure if I'm going to bother with the two final episodes anymore.