I find some of my favourite TV shows accidentally, at a time when I desperately need something to watch or tide me over until the next series of an already established favourite comes back.
One of these “accidental favorites” is called The Fall.
It is seriously one of the most chilling TV shows I have ever watched and I’m not even finished watching it yet.
The last few episodes of series three are yet to air in Australia and I am hanging on by a thread.
What will happen?!?
Confession: I already know because I couldn’t help myself and Googled a synopsis. Still, I’m ready to have my mind BLOWN!
Listen to Holly Wainwright explain exactly why you should watch The Fall on this week’s episode of Mamamia Out Loud.
The stars of this show are Gillian Anderson of X-Files fame and Jamie Dornan from 50 Shades of Grey.
The show follows a serial killer (Dornan) and the efforts by law enforcement to stop him and bring him to justice. None of that will spoil it for you.
One of the first scenes you’ll see is of a man by the name of Paul Spector strangling the life out of a poor girl. He’s your worst kind of nightmare – loving father and husband by day, deranged serial killer by night.
And Detective Superintendant Stella Gibson (Anderson) is brought in from the UK to Belfast, Ireland to try and solve the crime. She’s the one to link the crimes and the one to ultimately identify him.
Spector realises Gibson is onto him and seems to enjoy her attempts to catch him, taking time out to call her and creating some of the most intense, creepy scenes ever to be produced for a TV show.
At the heart of it it's difficult to figure out how Gibson feels about Spector. She seems unnaturally fascinated by him and characteristics of his crimes, at the same time feel acute distress as the innocent lives he is taking.
And I hate myself for sympathising with Spector as details of his childhood emerge.
The show began filming two years before Dornan was cast as Christian Grey in the Fifty Shades of Grey movie series and Dornan has said he believes he was given the role of Grey due to his work on The Fall.
"I'd always relished the idea of getting my teeth into something dark," he told the Hollywood Reporter. "But I have to admit that originally I only auditioned for a police officer, so I don't know what that says about what I did in the room, trying to be a good guy."
"You find out quite a lot about yourself exploring a character like this. It's not always stuff that you're comfortable finding out… I don't think I would have been in any kind of conversation for Fifty Shades had I not done the show."
Previously he'd worked on the fantasy TV series Once Upon A Time, playing the Huntsman.
Gillian Anderson, for her part, has really show her true talents in the role of CSI Stella Gibson. She is passionate, committed and also cold and steely.
She's a damaged woman devoted to catching the bad guys, rarely showing her true emotions except when she writes in her so-called Dream Journal, before Spector reads it and violates her in a way she struggles to cope with.
I'm pretty sure one of the reasons the X-Files reboot flopped was because she had grown way beyond the confine of FBI agent Dana Scully.
The Fall by BBC Two is up to it's third and final season. Article continues after this video.
That all just seems like prep for her latest and greatest role as CSI Stella Gibson on The Fall she has now reached peak brilliance in this character that was seemingly designed for her.
The first two seasons are available on Netflix with the third series still screening through Foxtel via BBC TWO.
If you find the darker elements of humanity compelling then this is a show you're going to love as much for the disturbing duplicity of Paul Spector as for what drives someone like CSI Stella Gibson who commits her somewhat lonely life to the pursuit of the most depraved individuals the world has ever seen.
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Top Comments
There are a lot of great Dramas on ABC. Try Dr Foster on Thursday night great drama
Jo, this show which I watched from when it first started, is one of the many reasons I didn't watch Fifty Shades... I knew that I would be waiting for 'Paul' to choke his gf till she was really dead. So my favourite show. Had to wait so long for season 3 and its nearly all over again :(