The Missing Review

Following the success of the first series staring James Nesbitt, the BBC has recently aired the second series which focuses on the detective Julien Baptiste and the case of Alice Webster. Initially, the series caused confusion due to the format of the editing and storytelling. Use of continuous flashback and flash forward relies on the attention and intelligence of the audience to understand the storyline and piece information together. A variety of establishing shots and lingering close ups infer things to the audience to remember for later in the eight episode series. Cool toned lighting with blue hues establish a mysterious, sad tone for the programme which at the beginning of the series only draws even further focus to the yellow camper van amongst a deserted landscape. The opening of the series immediately conjures up a variety of questions for the audience. My favourite aspect of the opening is the seemingly hand held tracking shot from behind the protagonist Alice. The shots cut between her at the time of her kidnap and when she has managed to escape. In a forest, the exploration of depth of field, with trees in the foreground allows the clips are edited together at points where Alice's character goes briefly out of sight then re emerges as her grown up self.  It appears that there are two stories, with corruption at the heart of both and gradually the two are seen to overlap with the key characters of Henry Reed and Brigadier Stone shown below. Following episode four, however, I am worried that the storyline with become too far fetched and distract from it's emotional intensity.