Firstly, apologies for the looooong delay in writing a new entry - just had a lot on my mind at the moment.
Oh, isn't that a clever link. 'on my mind', 'Mind Games' geddit? oh never mind. (never 'mind' ha ha, geddit?)
Mind Games was another TV drama by Lynda La Plante. I've already covered 'Killer Net', but this one was back to her usual setting of the police force, and a strong female lead character. Fiona Shaw plays Francis O'Neil, a former nun, now expert in criminal psychology. She supposedly has a knack of getting inside the killer's mind to help locate and capture them.
Well that was the hype about it, but in reality she doesn't help the police one single bit. She gives advice and clues, but not one of them is in the least bit helpful, or specific and I just kept scratching my head wondering when she was actually going to say something I couldn't have done myself by reading an A-level psychology text book. 'The murderer is likely to be male, white and mid twenties to thirties'. Well durrrr! (well actually she got one of those wrong too, but I won't spoil it by saying which one.)
The major flaws with most TV whodunnits is they never present the audience with enough suspects, so it ends up being too easy to solve. This was a case in point. The cast list is too short, and after you eliminate the obvious ones (such as O'Neil herself) you just aren't left with enough scope to make it a challenge. Ok, the script is fine, the acting is fine, the basic storyline is also fine, but 'fine' sometimes just isn't enough.
There were several references to the fact she was an ex-nun, but except for one scene in a church, I couldn't see the point in having that as a back story. It really didn't make the slightest bit of a difference. Perhaps I was missing some deeper meaning, but I really don't think I was. It was just La Plante thinking she is cleverer than she actually is. (think back to the Killer Net review, and her laughable knowledge of computer technology)
Thumbs down I'm afraid for this one, but not for the lack of trying. Police whodunnits are usually my cup of tea, but just couldn't bring myself to like this one, no matter how hard I tried. I'm guessing La Plante saw this as a potential series, a sort of follow-up to Prime Suspect or Trial and Retribution, but the fact it remains a one-off episode says a lot.
