Before I start this - spolier alert. If you're half way through and loving it, we're on different wavelengths and you should leave now. If you're powering through just to find out how it ends, I can relate and I can tell you - it's not worth it. If you've not started it, save yourself 10 hours and don't bother.
Your Honor was the hyped Sky show with Bryan Cranston that I was hearing about everywhere - podcasts, social media and people on the radio were all raving about it. When something gets this kind of hype I'm bound to jump on the bandwagon and join in, but what a mistake that was.
What I don't get is that people are still hyped by it and the reviews are good, despite so many HUGE plot flaws from the start and a completely messy ending. It leaves me wondering if I was watching the same show to be honest.
To give you a quick bit of background, Cranston plays a high powered judge called Michael. His 17-year-old son (Adam) is involved in a hit and run. Adam leaves the teenager he hits (Rocco) to die at the side of the road. It turns out Rocco is the son of a mob boss in the city so the series follows the steps Michael takes to try and cover it all up and save his son.
Now... to avoid this becoming an essay. I'm going to just focus on a few big flaws:
Adam's asthma - The whole reason for the hit and run, and something that reveals Adam's guilt later in the series, are his asthma attacks (so they're pretty important). You would have thought they'd have researched what an asthma attack consists of, because they present it as a panic attack and he even ends up losing all use of his legs at one point and drags himself across the floor trying to find his inhaler. This normally wouldn't bother me, but I was watching with my housemate who has asthma and she laughed at how unrealistic this was so it was downhill from there really as this came in the first 10 minutes of the show.
Adam - While we're at it. Adam (above) is the worse character ever. He's stupid, selfish, and has the personality of a wet flannel. He sleeps with his teacher and then moves on to Rocco's sister - where is his logic?! Fast forward to the final scene of the whole show and he gets shot in the neck as a big shocker. This failed however due to the fact he's so unlikeable, it meant we laughed when he died which I'm sure wasn't what they were going for. Just to make him even worse, he nearly killed his dog by forgetting to give him medication... enough said.
The ending - As I've touched on, Adam dies in the end but other than this they fail to actually tie up 90% of the story. Normally you'd think this was to keep it open for another season, but I'm praying they leave it alone. Plus, they can't really take this story any further. The series drags, building up loads of different parts of the story as each episode goes on. The problem is that then all these stories come to nothing, and they rush the last 15 minutes of the whole series. It felt like they suddenly ran out of money and decided to finish it with a big shock as quick as possible. We don't find out what happens to any of the characters other than the fact that Adam ends up dying in a very similar fashion to Rocco, which I'm sure they were trying to make a point from but as I say, we were beyond caring at that point.
MAJOR editing error - Like in most shows there is a 'previously on...' section, one of the later episodes included a part of the show in this section that NEVER ACTUALLY HAPPENED in the previous episodes which started a whole new storyline about the murder of Adam's mum (so a pretty big deal you'd think). I thought I must have just missed it, but no - they'd never included it in the previous episode at all.
The courtroom - Obviously the justice system in America is different to over here but I've looked into it and the role of a judge is different to the lawyer - shocker. Despite this, in the first episode we see Michael strutting around the courtroom playing the role of the prosecution lawyer, proving the guilt of the person on the stand - this wouldn't ever happen. He's there to hear the arguments and judge - that's it. Another point is that the main courtcase in the series (which goes on for WAY TOO LONG by the way) is closed to the public and the press, something Michael makes a big point of to the jury. However, Adam comes in and out to watch (another stupid decision made by him) and no one bats an eye lid.
Various unfinished plot points - A number of people find out who really killed Rocco in the last episode but we don't see what they do with this information. The baseball Adam left in the incriminating car which continued popping up as if to reveal the killer at any moment never got used for its full potential. And the whole story about Adam's mum cheating on Michael and being murdered never really went anywhere, it could have been cut out and it wouldn't have made a difference.
Michael's running style - Okay this is just a small one. But who runs in the middle of the road, at night, in dark colours and with a hood up, at a speed of seven minutes per mile at that age?!
You've reached the end of my rant - well done. There are other flaws - some of the lines being ridiculously cheesey, big inconsistencies, and certain characters never being used to their full potential - but I'll leave it at that today.
Moral of the story? Don't always believe the hype you hear around a show because you could end up wasting 10 hours of your life like I did.
*I do not own the images in this blog post*