[Ammi]

….I’m going to make its own thread for this 4 part series…I’ve only just finished the first episode but the pace of it is so fast moving and it’s such a riveting and gruelling storyline…


A family's world turns upside down when 13-year-old Jamie Miller is arrested for murdering a schoolmate. The charges against their son force them to confront every parent's worst nightmare….

Youtube video

…I know that @Ithinkiloveyoutoo is following the series also and it’s definitely one to recommend…

[Jessica.]

I've been thinking of watching it! Might watch a bit tonight if I finish the film I've been watching!

[Ithinkiloveyoutoo]

Well done on creating the thread! It definitely is a conversation starter.

Originally Posted by Ithinkiloveyoutoo

He is really good and so is the kid. Wonder if this will get some BAFTA noms. Wouldn't be surprised. Don't know if it can get Emmy noms but then Baby reindeer did so we never know

[Ithinkiloveyoutoo]

And it's only 4 episodes which makes it even more great!

[Crimson Dynamo]

Is it just another white people are bad stuff Netflix loves?

I will pass

[Strictly Jake]

Finished watching this tonight. What a powerful program it was. Having two young boys myself it's definitely made me think about a lot of stuff. Going forward it's helped me a lot. Stephen graham needs every award for his acting in this

[Ray.]

Originally Posted by Crimson Dynamo

Is it just another white people are bad stuff Netflix loves?

I will pass

Not at all! In an era where every other show is a tiresome and condescending treatise on masculinity and what it means to be a young boy in today's world, this was...yet another one. Yeah you're right to pass, I'm sorry to say. Started off fairly promisingly, then it dropped the ball in the last two episodes imo. Even tried to vaguely tie it into Trump support at one point, with the young boy awkwardly waving away video evidence with a cry of 'fake news' lmao. Felt like a reddit powermod wrote this show. Very on the nose and hamfisted imo.

[Ammi]

…it was a pretty powerful story which I guess was navigating not only adolescence as it is for those going through it in the current times…but also the loss of Jamie’s adolescence because of what he’d done…

…I liked the almost separation of each episode which were obviously intertwining but also each one focusing on a different aspect of how the events would impact a family and a whole community…

Spoiler:

….obviously the first episode being a lot about procedure etc following the crime…and then the second episode covering the detectives going to Katie and Jamie’s school…it was also a good edition to the storyline to have the detectives own child at that school…/…obviously he explained the emoji use on social media which was a huge key in the story…but also, the impact on him with his peers in being the child of a police officer…also feeling some of Jade’s turmoil of emotions…I think the third episode was the most riveting for me…that intensity between the psychology assessor and Jamie and brilliantly showing him as equally vulnerable and threatening…and then the last episode of how the family was living their lives in the aftermath of it all…the impact on them with any society reactions and also their own relationship with Jamie……

…it really did navigate through and touch on so much that being an adolescent of today involves…the ‘revenge porn’ stuff that Katie went through, cyber bullying and exposure to ‘incel’ ideologies…

Spoiler:

…as the officer said, how in the heck can a thirteen year old be tagged as an involuntary celibate when they’re not yet old enough to be sexually active…but it was the suggestion that and inferring that someone would be an incel in their whole future….

…there really is so much to navigate in being an adolescent in these current times with the power of the internet….

…all a very tragic and powerful storyline…

[Niamh.]

Just put the 1st episode on now

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Ray.

Not at all! In an era where every other show is a tiresome and condescending treatise on masculinity and what it means to be a young boy in today's world, this was...yet another one. Yeah you're right to pass, I'm sorry to say. Started off fairly promisingly, then it dropped the ball in the last two episodes imo. Even tried to vaguely tie it into Trump support at one point, with the young boy awkwardly waving away video evidence with a cry of 'fake news' lmao. Felt like a reddit powermod wrote this show. Very on the nose and hamfisted imo.

Agree with this, and although the acting was good (especially from the boy in ep3) a lot of the scenes were drawn out and boring. I get the message and what they were trying to achieve but I think a lot of people will have tuned out

[Jessica.]

I watched it, thought it was very good. People really need to monitor what their kids are doing online and who they're friends with. I do think the last episode dragged a bit but I suppose that's the point.

[Gusto Brunt]

Originally Posted by Crimson Dynamo

Is it just another white people are bad stuff Netflix loves?

I will pass

It's not for me. I know someone who watched it and he said it's unrealistic and overrated. I'm not a fan of Stephen Graham either. I've never liked anything he's been in. He too is overrated.

The subject matter not for me either. Good luck to anyone who likes it.

[Crimson Dynamo]

[Quantum Boy]

Originally Posted by Crimson Dynamo

Bollocks. Rougher inner-city schools maybe, 13 year olds are not all smoking weed at the average British suburban high school, besides a small handful of the most-deprived kids. It's no different at my daughter's school in 2025 to how it was when I was at school in the late 90's.

[Crimson Dynamo]

This is an extract from today’s episode of Spectator TV, with Toby Young and James Walton

I wasn’t all that overbowled by the series. I think one of the reasons it’s met with such a chorus of approval, particularly in the mainstream media, is because it’s just repeating back to the liberal metropolitan elite what they already think about the causes of knife crime and the dangers that influencers like Andrew Tate pose to women and girls. We’re in this sort of incredible loop. There might be a less polite term for it, but let’s call it a loop in which the metropolitan liberal elite make a television program, a fictional drama which exemplifies all their groupthink, and then cite it as evidence, subsequently, that that groupthink is spot on.

I mean, at one point, Keir Starmer – and incidentally, the production company that made Adolescence was part state-funded – Keir Starmer described it, in a slip of the tongue, as a ‘documentary’ in the House of Commons, and I think that is how it’s viewed. I mean, that was a Freudian slip. But I think that is how it’s viewed by the Metropolitan liberal elite. They think this is virtually, if not a documentary, a docudrama: that it is an incredibly accurate portrayal of exactly what’s gone wrong in the lives of adolescent white boys, particularly white-working class boys like the character in the film, and actually it bears very little resemblance to reality. There was a poll recently which showed that I think 13 to 15-year-old boys, something like 83 per cent had heard of Andrew Tate, but only 23 per cent had a favourable opinion of him, more than 60 per cent had an unfavourable opinion. So it’s not as if, you know, he enjoys this extraordinary kudos.

[Quantum Boy]

Not sure he watched it if he thinks it was about "knife crime", maybe he just knows the article that will sell.

Ultimately what it was about, was "out of touch" parents not being aware of what their kids are looking at/doing online because it's a world they don't understand and have just opted to "stay out of" thinking that it's harmless. The actual specifics of it are less important than that message. I imagine, for example, the "anti-woke right" would be less critical of the show if it was about a young girl spending too much time watching TikTok content that led her down the trans-boy pipeline, with her parents looking on with no idea what they're encountering.

It could just as easily have been about that (less dramatic, but the message is the same)

Or any other version of how young teens are affected by / indoctrinated by media content.

It also has elements of "generational violence" (the kid's dad came from a violent household, tried to do better by his own kids, worries that even though he was never abusive he might not have done enough).

it's a decent and well-acted show, nothing particularly woke about it, but if people are rejecting giving it ago because it happens to mention Andrew Taint (literally once) that's their own business I suppose.

[Quantum Boy]

Originally Posted by Ray.

Not at all! In an era where every other show is a tiresome and condescending treatise on masculinity and what it means to be a young boy in today's world, this was...yet another one. Yeah you're right to pass, I'm sorry to say. Started off fairly promisingly, then it dropped the ball in the last two episodes imo. Even tried to vaguely tie it into Trump support at one point, with the young boy awkwardly waving away video evidence with a cry of 'fake news' lmao. Felt like a reddit powermod wrote this show. Very on the nose and hamfisted imo.

Originally Posted by Niamh.

Agree with this, and although the acting was good (especially from the boy in ep3) a lot of the scenes were drawn out and boring. I get the message and what they were trying to achieve but I think a lot of people will have tuned out

See I disagree here and would argue that the last episode (that focusses entirely on the effect on the family, the guilt/shame/acceptance/reflection/trying to move on with normal life) is the strongest and most interesting episode.

I would also say as the parent of a "current social world" teenage girl who has just come out of the trenches of "the early teens" ... the portrayal of a teenage boy of age maybe 10 - 13 is not unrealistic at all (besides the actual stabbing), and flippantly branding something "Fake news" is 100% something a boy at that age would do. Early adolescence is a dumpster fire of an age group.

I will say this - at 15/16 there are thankfully plenty of my daughter's male peers who are coming through the "awkward little arsehole" phase finally and maturing out of it, she's actually close friends with some of them who she couldn't stand in early high school (which I told her would happen, and she completely disbelieved a couple of years ago).

But yeah.

A lot of 13 year old boys are fkn awful. This is from recent experience. I'll "be fair" and say plenty of the girls were pretty awful too, and plenty of them just as aggressive, and certainly worse in terms of social exclusion tactics.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Quantum Boy

See I disagree here and would argue that the last episode (that focusses entirely on the effect on the family, the guilt/shame/acceptance/reflection/trying to move on with normal life) is the strongest and most interesting episode.

I would also say as the parent of a "current social world" teenage girl who has just come out of the trenches of "the early teens" ... the portrayal of a teenage boy of age maybe 10 - 13 is not unrealistic at all (besides the actual stabbing), and flippantly branding something "Fake news" is 100% something a boy at that age would do. Early adolescence is a dumpster fire of an age group.

I will say this - at 15/16 there are thankfully plenty of my daughter's male peers who are coming through the "awkward little arsehole" phase finally and maturing out of it, she's actually close friends with some of them who she couldn't stand in early high school (which I told her would happen, and she completely disbelieved a couple of years ago).

But yeah.

A lot of 13 year old boys are fkn awful. This is from recent experience. I'll "be fair" and say plenty of the girls were pretty awful too, and plenty of them just as aggressive, and certainly worse in terms of social exclusion tactics.

I was a bit torn, I think the scene in the van of them talking about what they would do tonight for his birthday dragged and was boring for example but I know it had to be in there as well for the episode to make sense and like it was a real day.

Honestly, I'm just so glad my kids are adults now, it would be very scary being a parent of school age kids at the moment. Thankfully, although social media was a thing when mine were in school, it wasn't gone as bad as it has now

[Crimson Dynamo]

[AnnieK]

My son is 14 and I have been very, very lucky with him so far. No major angsty boy drama, he's just a generally good kid. I have friends with similar aged boys and girls and they have been a nightmare. I do have a rule which luckily he has complied with and that currently is no tech upstairs. I don't watch much TV so his PS5 is in the living room and if he's on his phone its in their too and he leaves his phone downstairs when he goes to bed so even though I don't snoop through his phone and don't always hear what he is watching, I am pretty confident he is not taking the piss. Whenever there are news reports about dangerous or dodgy TikTok trends, we discuss them (or I discuss them and he rolls his eyes at me lol). Obviously when he is out and about or at friends houses I don't know what he's up to particularly but his friends are a pretty good bunch of kids.

I think in part I've been lucky with him that his personality is as it is and he's a generally good kid, coupled with mutual respect and trust has been the way to go on the parenting front with me. He can been a cheeky little git and loves a good swear when he thinks I'm not listening but I thank god i got a good one

[Crimson Dynamo]

[Nicky91]

lots of swearing as well

[Cherie]

Originally Posted by AnnieK

My son is 14 and I have been very, very lucky with him so far. No major angsty boy drama, he's just a generally good kid. I have friends with similar aged boys and girls and they have been a nightmare. I do have a rule which luckily he has complied with and that currently is no tech upstairs. I don't watch much TV so his PS5 is in the living room and if he's on his phone its in their too and he leaves his phone downstairs when he goes to bed so even though I don't snoop through his phone and don't always hear what he is watching, I am pretty confident he is not taking the piss. Whenever there are news reports about dangerous or dodgy TikTok trends, we discuss them (or I discuss them and he rolls his eyes at me lol). Obviously when he is out and about or at friends houses I don't know what he's up to particularly but his friends are a pretty good bunch of kids.

I think in part I've been lucky with him that his personality is as it is and he's a generally good kid, coupled with mutual respect and trust has been the way to go on the parenting front with me. He can been a cheeky little git and loves a good swear when he thinks I'm not listening but I thank god i got a good one

honestly Annie, he is a credit to you, in the main I think most boys are like this, having brought up two boys myself and interacted with their friends and friends parents they were all pretty respectful and normal, not sure where all these feral boys are coming from, do they exist? I am sure they do in small measure just like they always have done

[Cherie]

I really don't get why everyone is jumping on board and saying how powerful this drama is, its average at best and not one of Stephen Grahams better outings

[Crimson Dynamo]

Originally Posted by Cherie

I really don't get why everyone is jumping on board and saying how powerful this drama is, its average at best and not one of Stephen Grahams better outings

because left wing propaganda