Guilt

As summer indulgences go, Guilt--made by a team that includes the writers, creators and co-executive producers Kathryn Price and Nichole Millard--is like the paperback you avidly consume on the beach.

There's too much froth, too many players, and not enough actual shocks to make you care about the answer [to if Grace killed her flatmate]. [17 Jun 2016]

The unfortunate tendency to pile on the daytime-worthy dramatics means the show’s strongest element--the thorny and fraught nature of a murder case in the era of social media--gets underserved all too often.

Aided by Zane and Anthony Head, both of whom are clearly having a great time, the twists may allow viewers to overlook the clunky dialogue and nonsensical plotting. And there’s something admirable about setting such a say-cheese-please murder mystery in the backyard of “Sherlock,” “Luther” and other high-minded British detective shows.

Other than Zane, the acting is sub-par and the writing painful.

Guilt isn’t about power players per se, but it fails to deliver on a number of important fronts. Its characters are predictably written, the dialogue is average at best, and Grace in particular does so many dumb things that it’s hard to care about what happens to her.

Guilt is such a mess of feigned and failed authenticity and feigned and failed vulgarity that it's most uncomplicated pleasure comes from watching Billy Zane basically play a hybrid of James Spader's characters from The Practice and The Blacklist.