Customer Reviews

Durham County: Season One

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

A few years ago I discovered this show called "Durham County" which is shown in Canada. Soon after I began watching it I realized this is a special type show. It was like nothing I had really watched before, as most shows, at least here in the US, tend to be "Safe". There are exceptions such as Sons of Anarchy or Dexter or The Shield, but by and large most shows have a "we won't cross this line" mentality that prevents it from seriously going in a direction that might be seen as offputting to a number of viewers.

Thankfully Durham County's network does not have that mentality, and so it has allowed this brilliant show to be crafted in a way that is unsettling and not at all "safe". The show is completely unpredictable and in fact the one thing that IS predictable is how you will feel afterwards. Kinda icky. And that's a great thing I think. Anytime a show can create these emotions inside you that make you question what you just watched is brilliant in my mind.

The only show that really approaches this in the sense of "oh my God he's not going to...oh he just did!" is probably Dexter. Dexter is a show that essentially has you rooting for a serial killer to get away with it. Perhaps because the people that he kills are all bad people. We know this watching it, so when he kills a pedophile or a child killer or a guy who killed his wife, we don't really feel that bad. We know killing is wrong, but we know 100% that the people he's killing are guilty and are getting away with it. So that makes it okay, if even in a questionable morals type of way.

Durham is much the same, only in a different way. Durham is about Detective Mike Sweeney, played by Hugh Dillon (TV's Flashpoint) who after his partner is killed relocates with his family to the suburbs of Durham County. Unknowingly he moves across the street from his old high school nemesis Ray Prager who is played by Justin Louis (TV's Stargate Universe). Louis' Prager is a creepy and easily angered guy who never really made anything of himself. His kid hates him, his marriage is falling apart, and as the show opens up he's spying on a man who kills two girls in the woods.

And he does nothing. Except watch. You get the impression that he's turned on by this combination of sex and violence, which can not be a good thing. Anyone that's watched any episodes of Law & Order: SVU knows that this is not a healthy combo.

Soon the girls are discovered, and Sweeney begins to set his sight on his old enemy, and has his motives questioned due to their uneasy history.

The interactions between Hugh Dillon and Justin Louis are spectacular and you can absolutely just taste the dislike between their characters. Their hatred of each other is palpable, all the while they dance around and and act like they want to make things work out.

There's an especially great scene near the end of Season 1 where Prager is being interrogated by Sweeney and these two great actors just nail every single moment, making what could have been a routine scene that we've seen a hundred times, into something great with unbelievable tension hanging in the air thick as smoke.

Unfolding over six episodes the series is filled with moments that make you squirm, that disturb you and make you want to take a shower quickly after it's over. However what the show won't do is leave you without thinking about it. It's so well done, so excellently shot and presented that it's impossible to watch this show and not have some thoughts about it. It's not a show that you watch it and just forget about it. It stays with you long after watching it, for good or for bad. It is filled with moments that reach out and grab you and forces you to look at yourself and how you feel about the things you're seeing.

It's not violent for violent's sake. It's not brutal for the sake of brutality. It's not done in a gratuitous way where you look at it and think "now did they REALLY need that?" It's all done in a deliberate way in order to provoke thought and discussion.

Unlike many shows here in the states, there is only six episodes to a season, so there's no room for filler. There's no episodes that don't further the mystery or the storylines, like you see in series that run on for 20+ episodes a season. This means that every episode means something. Every episode has something to say and it's up to you to pay attention and follow everything.

Viewers should be warned that in addition to the disturbing content involving murders, there is also a good deal of adult language and there is some nudity/sexual situations. This is DEFINITELY not for kids or those who are easily offended.

However it IS for those who love intelligent television that doesn't treat it's audience like idiots that need everything handed to them on a plate in the way of an explanation. The show ends on a note that doesn't wrap everything up. Some of the story continues in Season 2 especially concerning Ray Prager and his effects on Sweeney's family life.

Both Sweeney and Louis were outstanding in this show and both were rightly nominated for Best Actor Gemini awards, (kind of like the Canadian Emmys) with Justin Louis winning it for his complex portrayal of a very bad person who perhaps has a reason for why he's so bad.

Helene Joy (who portrays Mike Sweeney's wife) won for Best Actress as well, and Sonya Salomaa (Ray Prager's Wife) and Laurence LeBoeuf (Mike Sweeney's daughter) were both nominated for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively.

This is a brilliant show and is one of my top 5 all time (along with The Wire, Carnivale, Dexter, and Lost)

The box cover's description sounds a little cheesy, but these six episodes are a brilliant piece of storytelling. This is extremely intelligent, bleak, thrilling noir, with a great deal of subtext into dynamics between men and women, and male violence toward women. The writing is exemplary, as is the cinematography and performances. ... The best piece of television storytelling I've seen since The Wire.

I watched this because the "sort of good guy", the cop, is the really good guy on the Canadian series FLASHPOINT. He's part good and part bad as the cop in this small town where he relocates his family. Right across the street from him lives the big deal in town, a real bad guy, a complete psychopath. Naturally, he is such a good old boy in the town, lived there all his life, that everyone loves him. His name is Ray. Ray plays this between high camp and straight. He reminds me somewhat of Ian McShane in DEADWOOD but, of course, worse. This is great fun. "Ray" was so good that he won the Canadian version of the Emmy for this as lead actor.

I've only gotten to watch part of Season One, but every show has been so well done that I've sometimes forgotten the actors aren't actually the characters in the series. Sometimes horrendously graphic, almost no one (even the "good guys") seems beyond reproach. I can't wait to see the rest of the series on DVD!

I bought this dvd and was surprised to see it had no closed captions. My hearing is very bad and I require captions. Most dvd produced these days have them. I never did watch the series but I still own the disk.

Recommendation for Amazon: please indicate clearly on your sales pages whether CC is included - it is important for your deaf customers and it might spur rogue producers (like the producers of Durham county) to create them for their products.

In the first 10 min of the show we watch someone, watching a serial killer destroy two young lives. The 'watcher' it turns out, is also a killer and your neighbor who lives across the street from you in your new house, in your new neighborhood. And oh yes, the 'neighbor' also happens to be a classmate of yours from High School who you tried to kill for stealing your girl. Thus begins the first episode of Durham County and it only gets better from there. The story threads that run thru the rest of the first season, infidelity, cancer survival, domestic violence etal, all add additonal color to the very compelling first season (6 episodes.) This was a 'gem' of a show to find and season II is equally worth purchasing & watching by the way. The only 'knock' I have on the show is that it has no closed captions and you have to replay some scenes a few times to catch all the dialogue, but overall I give this series a '10'.

difficult to describe this series, except to say that it is a crime/detective series that follows the life of the lead detective as he is in investigates a series of murders. These murders get personal for him, because one of the victims he was romantically involved with.

A serial killer is on the loose, and as detective Mike Sweeney pieces together the clues, he is led to believe the killer is not only someone he knows (from high school), but who also lives in his same neighborhood.

So far, I've only watched the first three episodes, but this is a refreshing start. Being filmed and produced in Canada, it has a different "look" than we in the U.S. are used to seeing, in terms of cinematography. Much of it is bleak and gritty and looks like it was filmed through a blue lens at times, which fits the story-line perfectly.

Interesting supporting characters as well, from the daughter and wife of the detective to the detective's co-workers. Fine acting across the board. Justin Louis' (of Stargate Universe) has a intense role, which is well done.

Will update this review periodically as the season unfolds...

I bought this to look at Hugh Dillon. That will be the reason I buy season two. That worked out well. It was also kind of a good show, kinda creepy story, confusing flashbacks, but interesting.

Interesting characters, good plot. We enjoyed watching season one so much, but have never found season two on tv - or three. We are glad that the dvds are available.

Although the characters are well played, this is a little more dark then I perfer. It would have to be an acquired taste.