Afterlife - Series 1 & 2 Box Set

Customer Reviews:

At long last ... a chiller..........2008-01-07

Having seen both seasons of 'AfterLife', I must say, this is something that has been needed for a long time. I love horror films and novels and so was relishing the chance of seeing 'AfterLife' and it hooked me from the first seconds to the very end of season 2.

I have felt for a long time now that films, dramas etc. have lack in the chilling department and that most fail to do what old classics managed to do so many years ago. However, 'AfterLife' does this and boy, it does this really well.

Through each episode, you have a different story being told and all the episodes within the season are enclosed by a seasonal story about the main characters. This style is incredibly easy to follow and beautifully crafted and also allows the viewer a chance or two at guessing the possible outcomes of the episodes.

The two main characters (Alison and Robert) are a played by Lesley Sharp and Andrew Lincoln and they both perform brillaintly. They create a lot of depth to the characters and you feel as though you are getting to know these characters well as the series moves on.

The musical score is another area which works well in this series. Creepingly beautiful at times, it really creates a chilling sense of atmosphere around the program.

Some of the ideas here are exceptional and fresh with the occasion ones being re-invented with a little style. Emotions will be greatly effected through-out the series as 'AfterLife' does this incredibly well, particulary chilling and upsetting.

I would like to see one more season as the series is that good, and to actually see a proper, good old fashioned chiller working well. Big thumbs up!

Afterlife.......2007-09-04

I thoroughly enjoyed this series from start to end..

At first i thought this was going to be just like all the other shows about
mediums and things that go bump in the night..
im so glad im wrong..

Lesley Sharp is the clairvoyant Alison Mundy who sees and tries to help
dead people. Alison feels isolated by her 'gift', which is so brilliantly
orchestrated by Lesley..

Alison forms a relationship with parapsychology lecturer Dr. Robert Bridge
(Andrew Lincoln), who is convinced her ghosts have an explanation rooted
in the unconscious. He becomes her biographer in the hope to discover more..

As the series continues the relationship between Alison and Robert grows
stronger adding to the last episodes brilliant conclusion..

There are no fancy effects like you see in for example Heroes, Medium or
The 4400 and its as if the story could be taking place in your street or
to the woman next door..

The most gripping aspect of 'Afterlife' is that Alison's ghosts are actually
scary. Not sweet ones with messages for their loved ones, but disturbed
and sometimes evil forces..

Each episode treats a particular haunting, Alison is called in to help.
The ghosts appear as they did at the moment of death which is sometimes
gruesome. This adds to the realism of the whole series..

Series 1 focuses on Robert's dead son and the tragedy behind his marital
breakdown. Alison tries to break down his defences and get him to face
his own grief. This climaxes in a seance episode that's amazing, thrilling and
emotionally cathartic..

Series 2 focuses on Alison's troubled relationship with her mentally-ill
mother who now seems to be haunting her.. Also Robert starts to come to
terms with his terminal illness..

The final two episodes are beautiful, tearful and so emotionally intense
that i was completely overwhelmed..

I love this program, i was totally moved by it.. and still am..
Absolutely fantastic..

Dark, disturbing, tragic and beautiful.......2007-06-09

What a discovery this show was! I missed it on TV, but picked up Disk 1 as a rental option and was so blown away I bought the whole series.

The concept is familiar to anyone who's watched the Patricia Arquette vehicle US show "Medium". Lesley Sharp is the clairvoyant Alison Mundy who, like her American counterpart Allison DuBois, sees dead people. There the similarities end. Dubois juggles a family life and a career, but Alison Mundy is traumatised and isolated by her "gift", unable to hold down a job or a relationship and existing in a quirky limbo of kitsch seances and exploitative spiritualist meetings. In place of a husband, Alison forms an odd-couple relationship with parapsychology lecturer Dr Robert Bridge (Andrew Lincoln), who remains convinced that her ghosts have an explanation rooted in the unconscious. It is a strength of the show that, although we are privy to what Alison sees, the reality is left ambiguous: Alison is clearly troubled, obsessive and delusional in many ways and Robert's scepticism is an important theme in the show, going far beyond Dana Scully's token "there-must-be-a-scientific-explanation" rationalism.

The other aspect of "Afterlife" that trumps "Medium" is that Alison's ghosts are actually _scary_. They're not cute phantoms with a message for the living, but disturbed and disturbing forces that mirror that trauma and alienation of the central characters.

Each episode treats a particular haunting, usually with Alison being called in to help a client and Robert tagging along to question and criticise. This structure never becomes formulaic however, unlike the schtick of see-a-ghost-talk-to-the-D.A.-and-solve-the-crime treadmill of "Medium". For one thing, each haunting is a neatly inventive take on conventional ghost stories. Amidst the classic dead-girl-wants-her-murderer-caught stories, we're treated to the ghosts of aborted foetuses, ghosts who don't realise they're ghosts (OK, very "Sixth Sense" but effectively handled), ghosts of the future and ghosts being possessed by the living!

If the series stopped at this level, it would be a satisfying sequence of thoughtful horror-thrillers making interesting points about superstition and science, credulity and faith. What we get instead are two beautiful story arcs. In Season 1, the drama focuses on Robert's dead son, the tragedy behind his marital breakdown, and Alison's attempts to break down his defences and get him to face his own grief. This culminates in a seance episode that is genuinely scary, thrilling and emotionally cathartic. Season 2 shifts the focus to Alison's troubled relationship with her mentally-ill mother, now haunting her, while Robert comes to terms with his terminal illness. The final two episodes here are as beautiful, tearful and life-embracing a sequence of TV drama as I have ever watched. Other critics have complained that the series dragged and meandered. I didn't find it so, and the investment we've made in these characters over the preceding dozen stories reaps a powerful, bittersweet reward at the end. A conclusion to make you cry and smile and haunt your dreams. Simply wonderful.

This is really Lesley Sharp's show. She starts strong, as a fiercely feisty but oddly brittle woman, and threatens to overwhelm Andrew Lincoln's more subdued portrayal of Dr Bridge. Nevertheless, he builds his character slowly and matches her line for line. By the end of Season 1, the interplay between them is electrifying and, in Season 2, we're watching these two actors at the absolute top of their game. Thrilling performances.

Make no bones about it, this is emotional and tragic material. The relentless morbidity is leavened not, as one reviewer suggested, by cutesy joke scenes or humorous diversions, but by poignant and beautiful themes of emotional reconciliation. The show has been described as Shakespearean in its scope, but it is the Shakespeare of "The Tempest" and "The Winters Tale", plays without clowns where the laughter-through-tears comes when precious moments of tenderness emerge, hard-won, through the lowering darkness.

I can't rate this show highly enough as emotional drama or as contemporary ghost story. The Americans do formula prime time, but it's nice to see the Brits still excelling at this sort of quirky, adorable oddity.

Not too fond of it........2007-03-11

Mind you, this series is well acted, its characterization is good, its plot tight, and the basic concept of it (treating the life of a medium from a psychological perspective) is well thought out. But I didn't like it; it drags its wear and tear and tears for too long. The Shakespearean lesson (comedies have a tragical moment, and tragedies have a comedic moment) has been completely wasted on this: if there was one light moment or two each episode it would have been more viewable.

What will your afterlife be.......2006-12-20

Having watched the show on tv and waiting for it to come on on dvd this is a must have for people wondering about life after death as no one knows what it will hold. The acting by the two main characters is brill and it finally comes down to a tear jearking end.

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