By Slanted Light

I watched it. I had much the same reaction. I actually fell asleep toward the end! I wanted very much to find out whodunnit, but that had as much to do with having read/seen all the hype beforehand (I was very good and didn't let myself Google the answer, but in retrospect maybe I should have, I could have saved myself two hours). The show itself was pretty dull.

As far as I understood it, bearing in mind that I was rather sleepy, the local constable at first massively resented having this London detective stepping on his toes and scoffing at the conclusions he had drawn. He later realised that he had cocked up enormously when he dismissed the bloody nightgown that had been found (that happened before Whicher came along, I think), only it was too late to do anything about it, so he covered it up. Constance eventually confessed because she'd become religious and presumably had an attack of guilt and decided she couldn't live with it any longer - although she clearly didn't feel badly enough to drop her brother in it. I don't think he wanted Dolly there because he thought there was anything Dolly could do, as such, he just wanted the moral support of a friendly face to bounce ideas off.

The plot mostly made sense to me, although it wasn't as mysterious as the press had made out (all that hype about whodunnit, but we actually saw very little of that general suspicion being thrown around in all directions). The story was just...unengaging. There was nothing about the character of Whicher himself to root for. He was dull and he made a lot of mistakes. I kept feeling that I should be feeling sorry for him, as he was clearly under a lot of pressure to deliver a result that was practically impossible to achieve, given the limitations of the resources available to a detective in the 1860s. But I couldn't feel sorry for him because nothing about the character inspired my sympathy or interest.

There was definitely some kind of vital spark missing. I'm not sure what it was. The performances seemed strong enough and the period detail was well done. Yet the final product was definitely missing something.