Although Ken Stott is a good if sanitized Rebus, the show doesn't really take off. Format might be an issue here as 70 minutes is a fairly short period to tell a complex story. On the other hand, other shows like Blue Murder manage it. My main misgivings about the show are that the episodes have nothing to do whatsoever with the books of the same titles and that the story telling is linear. A whodunnit is which the who and usually even the why is obvious after 15 minutes is pretty pointless. There are absolutely no surprises, no twists in the story telling: not to put too fine a point on it, the stories are plainly boring. That's a pity because you get some really find performances of the cast. Particularly the actresses who play Siobhan Clarke and Gill Templer are really doing a splendid job in bringing those characters to life. Some changes to Rebus I just don't understand. In the books we learn that he drives a Saab. Why change that to a Mercedes (of all cars. A symbol of authority and power if I ever saw one.)? Rebus in the books is a very dark character which is reflected by the nature of his relationships. Here, he is a dark brooding womanizer. In the TV series he is more grumpy than violent. An interesting thing is that Cafferty keeps calling FRebus "Strawman", apparently because he was once called that in a court case. However, that is taken from Eliot's "The Hollow Men" and refers to Rebus not having any purpose in life beyonmd his job (and the point is driven home brutally in the last scene of Exit Music).
Review of Rebus
