reality42 The story itself is somewhat interesting, but its hard to "suspend disbelief" when the implication is that the people in these cities are idiots. In the real world if there were what seems to look like 1 city to the outside, split into 2 cities in separate countries that share a border and don't wish open immigration, it would be be far cheaper and more convenient for citizens to build a wall. Its doubtful there is any credible scenario that could explain how the claimed situation evolved in the first place if you assume these are humans rather than aliens who don't share the same human nature we do. I watched this to see if some interesting twist would make their approach more credible, but it never arose.btw, this comment doesn't indicate anything about politics in the real world. I favor as much open immigration as possible, and a wall dividing a dense city is vastly different than an extremely long one along a sparsely populated border between countries.

aleeward This miniseries tricks you into thinking there will be an astonishing reveal that is worthy of the painful slog of an effort it is to watch.After watching episode one I felt perhaps I had accidentaly skipped a few episodes, as just 5 minutes in I had no idea what was going on. Aware that this was based on a novel I powered through in the hope that all would be made clear in the forthcoming episodes.How I was sadly wrrong.The premise of 2 cities overlapping, but being worlds apart and disconnected was intriguing. However there is no real explanantion as to why and how this happened. We're never really told if this is a futuristic yet backward era or a facsimilie of a divided Germany. (the scenery, uniforms and costume certainly allude to this)The cockney foulmouthed sidekick pours fuel on the fire of annoyane. This leads to apathy and makes you wonder if you really care about the dead girl.I'll stop now for the fear of dropping spoilers, but it shouldn't really matter as I would highly recommend swerving this programme.

Prismark10 The City and the City is an interesting, intriguing, thought provoking fantasy/sci-fi detective thriller. It is shot in a grimy way with a budget that is not quite large enough to reach its ambitions but almost gets there by will power. If you look hard enough you can see some parts of Liverpool.I did find the series rather confusing but during its transmission I visited Berlin and this gave me another dimension to understand the series.David Morrissey plays a hard boiled detective Tyador Borlú , an Inspector in the Beszel Extreme Crime Squad. Beszel is a dinghy city with battered tower blocks, poor, with immigrants and a government that wants to drive the foreigners out. It is a Dystopian society not too far from East Germany.Borlú is investigating the death of a an American female found dead in Beszel. However she was studying in Ul Qoma so it was a case of what was she doing here? Ul Qoma is a little bit upmarket, with glass towers, affluence and a little bit of style and intellectual sophistication. Yet it is also anti immigrant and deep down it is also a Dystopian society, maybe West Berlin of the 1970s.Both cities exist in the same space, residents from both cities ignore each other and have been trained to unsee and ignore the other city. If you cross the cities illegally it is a breach and punishable unless you go through the official crossing points. A bit like Checkpoint Charlie.As we follow Borlú's investigation with his new potty mouthed partner, we see flashbacks of his wife who disappeared some years earlier. Did she go to Ul Qoma and not return? Borlú crosses over to Ul Qoma and investigates some radicals who believe that there is a mythical third city called Orciny.Morrissey is wonderful, he makes the series come alive. The City and the City is one of the best dramas of 2018.

roberttimbre I think the writer and producer and director are largely at fault here. Script development and appreciation of source material is so poor and shows that it takes great skill to convert a novel to the screen. Too many assumptions are made, that the viewer will know the world into which we descend. Far too much inappropriate swearing by actors who look lost and vague, with those who are chain smoking clearly I'll at ease with the poisonous habit and as such fail to convince us that they are real smokers so it creates scenes that look incongruous nay ridiculous. The plotting is clumsy and laborious. The photography/ lighting is reasonably well done, but spoiled by the rest of the ingredients. It doesn't look like much money was spent on the production, which is probably a blessing for the tax payers, but really the whole thing shouldn't have been given the go ahead.