Review for Deceit

This four part mini series explores the murder of Rachel Nickell and the insane police investigation which followed it. In 1992 a young mother is found dead, her two year old son was with her at the time. The police are convinced the killer was a man named Colin Stagg and so they have an undercover police woman under the name 'Lizzie James' to trap him, in hopes of gaining a conviction.

'Guilty Until Proven Innocent' could be the tag line for this TV series and I was simply stunned by it as I watched. Each episode was perfect in setting up for the next one and so felt compelled to bingewatch the entire series in one sitting.

Niamh Algar was perfect as Sadie and you really do get to see her spiral out of control in some ways very similar to way Johnny Depp is in Donnie Brasco. The surrounding cast was just perfect and I was taken by everyone, especially Sion Daniel Young as Colin Stagg and he really had me on edge as to whether he did do it or not.

I think the fact that I did not know the story made it more interesting and exciting, because I was unaware of whetehr he did it or not and so there was a feeling of mystery which if you do not know the story makes it feel like an episode of Prime Suspect or Line of Duty. It is a shame that this was a true story as the characters are so strong I would have happily watched them in a second and third season and hopefully someone takes the template here and does just that.

The DVD comes with a number of special features (including Subtitles, which made me smile). The three featurettes A Backdrop to Deceit, Spinning a Web of Deceit and Looking the Part are all fairly short and just brief overviews on how they created the setting, created the show and got the costumes and look of the show. The four interviews are with (oddly named as the characters, rather than the actors) Colin (Sion Daniel Young), Keith (Harry Treadaway), Paul (Eddie Marsan) and Sadie (Niamh Algar). All are around one minute long and just a quick bulletpoint description of the character and their approach. Far too short to mean anything.

Deceit is not a drama I would watch again, but is certainly one that I enjoyed watching and would probably recommend to others. Acting and the flow of the story was perfect and it did not outstay its welcome. If you not catch it when it was on, I would not be decieving you to say to check it out.