Let me preface this by saying that David Tennant's portrayal of Aiden was masterful and, while I feel Emily Watson was poorly cast here, her effort as Freya was very well done, as well.
However -- either the writing was weak, or this was a 6 hour miniseries cut down to three. So much is missing. So much is there and makes you ask yourself, why?
The son... what role does he play? Having a child with challenges like this, there was so much character development, for the child as well as for his parents, that could have gone on around this story arc that... didn't. The daughter? Other than the fact of the existence of children in the home (and the nanny being a presence), there is little development here.
Many of the plot lines simply... end... without any closure. What happened with the nanny? What happened with the son's challenges at school and elsewhere? What was the purpose of Aiden's father's death?
I feel that this could have been so much better, had only they taken the time to tell the story in more depth, or not left so many arcs hanging. How do you go from "I'll take the children away so you can move out," in one scene, to arrival at #10 as an obviously estranged but "united front in front of the cameras" power couple in the next?
As I said, the story, while brilliantly acted, was choppy; either poorly written, or half of it is still laying on the editing room floor.
However -- either the writing was weak, or this was a 6 hour miniseries cut down to three. So much is missing. So much is there and makes you ask yourself, why?
The son... what role does he play? Having a child with challenges like this, there was so much character development, for the child as well as for his parents, that could have gone on around this story arc that... didn't. The daughter? Other than the fact of the existence of children in the home (and the nanny being a presence), there is little development here.
Many of the plot lines simply... end... without any closure. What happened with the nanny? What happened with the son's challenges at school and elsewhere? What was the purpose of Aiden's father's death?
I feel that this could have been so much better, had only they taken the time to tell the story in more depth, or not left so many arcs hanging. How do you go from "I'll take the children away so you can move out," in one scene, to arrival at #10 as an obviously estranged but "united front in front of the cameras" power couple in the next?
As I said, the story, while brilliantly acted, was choppy; either poorly written, or half of it is still laying on the editing room floor.