Apple Tree Yard (2017): I have no idea about this series or the book it was adapted from prior watching this.I just picked up it randomly as it is just 4-episode long and labeled as thriller.This year I already got a surprise in the form of Cardinal (which I have no idea just like this one but Loved it after watching). SO does always random stuff turns out to be better surprises? Plot: Married with two grown-up children, Yvonne Carmichael (Emily Watson) lives a contented, conventional suburban life. But her world spirals into chaos, when a chance encounter leads to an impulsive and passionate affair with a charismatic stranger (Ben Chaplin). Despite all her careful plans to keep her home life and career safe and separate from her affair, fantasy and reality soon begin to overlap and everything she values is put at risk, as a life-changing act of violence leads to a Crown Court trial.My Review: To be frank Apple Tree Yard could easily fit into a 2hr+ feature film rather than 4-episode series.It doesn't mean that series is bad but it felt slow paced and with that content and some serious writing,this could become one of the best thrillers in film.Apple Tree Yard is thought provoking effective drama which is a must watch for everyone and it has lot of scenes with amazing sensibilities.Like the scene in which Yvonne bursts out during dinner and how Gary threatens adviser who insults rape victims,the dialogues are very good.And as for the stunning twist right at the end, did you still have Yvonne down as 'a victim' after that? Apple Tree Yard entirely belongs to Emily Watson's stunning performance.She is exceptional as illustrious scientist Yvonne Carmichael, mastering each scene as the action plummets from steamy mid-life trysts with the mysterious Mark Costley (Ben Chaplin) to "the first honest depiction of rape on television" – and on to a court case that threatens not just her reputation but her entire existence. Mark Bonnar and Ben Chaplin are also very effective in their roles.So,Apple Tree Yard is one of the rarest drama on TV which gives a sensible message which makes it worth watching.My Rating 7.25/10

it makes sense from a female perspective.. she didn't report it because she didn't wanna be remembered as the one who got raped. and the rapist following her around is not so far fetched because we all do things that we don't understand and he couldn't help himself or something no matter how detrimental that could and did end up to be in the end. just think about the whole harvey weinstein situation ..hes smart, hes charming, creative, manipulative, abuses his power, couldn't help being himself despite the perpetual negative feedback he was getting from pretty much anyone around him ... and he got away with it for decades! women are too aware of how this works. Perjury ? thats nothing in the world we live.. She ends up believing in this mysterious guy because thats the kind of lie we are being fed by the happy go lucky movies... and whats behind a happy movie... anorexia, pain, "couch" casting, addictions. She wants to believe ... cause otherwise you're a negative loser... losing at life. For a short while life felt like a Nancy Meyers movie. And then life punches her over and over and she cannot punch back ... cause its not a Bruce Willis movie. The mysterious mess shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone because we all have ppl around us whos reality is different then everyone elses ... like totally different. And they love to be in the character and if you wanna call them out on it you end up feeling like you're abusing them or something... and it all turns into a massive tragedy. The series is great and thats that!:) I didn't even want to watch TV that night but it lured me in just from the whole vibe of it :) ...and her inner dialogue... the unspoken dialogue between Emily and her husband ... it melted my dark heart really. I hope she didn't get to live all the feelings shes expressing trough her face and demeanor on here! No supersmart ass lines needed, just life unfolding + the shock of having to accept what she cannot control + having to survive everything... And the humiliations we all go trough and our weakneses that bring us to our knees ...and we have to see each other like that and live with those images in our minds and souls and we don't even like to use the word soul cause we are not our moms but still... we have one that gets messed up over and over and we end up messing others up too and we have to hold in there cause what else can we do... other then the obvious.. or go on meds . And the cinematography is great and it makes me wanna live in London!

I have to say this is one of the more thought provoking series I have seen in a while, probably because there is a lot of it I don't understand and even more that I understand but which defies logic. But perhaps that is exactly what its producers intended. There can surely be few things more boring, or unsexy, than someone else's affair. Thrilling for those involved I'm sure but excruciating for everyone else, and people endlessly rutting in public places hardly constitutes a plot. Consequently I almost gave up about 50 minutes into the first episode. The extreme ferocity of the rape at the end of this episode certainly produced the shock the producers intended, although the micro-second "Jekyll and Hyde" transition from harmless academic to brutal rapist animal did seem too excessive to be likely. The rapist's subsequent reversion back to someone who sends flowers and texts and acts more like a besotted, deluded dingbat rather than a malicious stalker adds to the confusion. It is never explained how George Selway knew about their affair and indeed by the end of the series one wonders if he ever did know. Even if he did, it beggars belief he would rely on this tawdry piece of information to ensure she did not report the rape, so the rape, and the non-reporting of it, simply do not make sense. In the immediate aftermath of the rape the viewer is led to think that the reason Yvonne does not report it is so her affair does not come out into the open. Then suddenly that whole scenario goes out the window and the reason for not reporting becomes because of the process and shame involved in doing so. It is all rather confusing. Surprisingly she has virtually no physical marks after this brutal ordeal, just the tidiest of finger marks and no sign of the shiner she should have had from being whacked in the face. To be honest I would have expected her to have more marks on her body from her shenanigans with Mark Costly down in the crypt. Through all this we are all wondering what she sees in this Costly character who has all the charisma of a sack of spuds. This, I suppose, is the whole point, that she has distorted this supremely dull person into her knight, and from this we really should have guessed right from the start that Yvonne is a sandwich short of a picnic, if not an entire hamper short of a picnic.Fast forward and we find our lovers sitting in a car outside the rapist's house. And again, thinking back, we should all have guessed that this sudden unexplained plot jerk means that some crucial information has been deliberately withheld from the viewer. Something unnamed but obviously dastardly goes down in George's flat so we are not surprised when the Police interrupt Yvonne and her family in a restaurant and arrest her. But on the other hand we really should be surprised because how did the police know she was involved and how did they know she was in that restaurant? What gave them away, and so quickly, is never revealed.In amongst all this we have a few red herrings thrown in for good measure, a troubled son whose story turns out to be irrelevant and a husband's dalliance with a student, which I presume is supposed to make our heroine look a little less slutty and justified in her affair.The trial is all a bit weird, being more a posthumous trial of George Selway for rape rather than a trial of Yvonne and Mark for murder. By the end of it we have a woman who has majorly perjured herself to the point no one would believe she had been raped at all, and we have no idea why a person who has clearly murdered someone gets convicted of manslaughter, nor how someone who is obviously an accomplice to murder escapes conviction completely. It is difficult not to think the series trivialises rape. We have, for instance, Yvonne not reporting a rape, and perjuring herself in Court, because she is apparently more ashamed of being discovered as a cheating wife than she is concerned about being raped, implying that in the scheme of things rape is the lesser offense. In the epilogue we find out what the crucial missing preamble to the murder was, and it is difficult not to feel a little cheated. Deliberately withholding information just to create a shock at the end is a cheap trick, it is like Sherlock Holmes, after painstakingly analysing the ash from a cigar and the tattoos on someone's back, announces the murderer is someone that has not even been introduced to the reader. We are left wondering just what else has been left out, or indeed if any of the bits we have been shown are actually true. The entire rug of the series is pulled from under us. Once again perhaps this dislocation is exactly what the producers wanted but it is treading a fine line between shocking and infuriating viewers. So what do we have at the end? A couple of loonies, a dead rapist and a bunch of question marks. My verdict is that while generally enjoyable the series is far too simplistic and that the only reason it "worked" at all is because it was so rushed that viewers mis- interpreted the obvious non sequiturs and gaping holes as being "deep" and "thought provoking" rather than the obvious plot flaws they are.

Any series that starts with the main character handcuffed in a prison van on the way to court is cheating the viewers.Sure,flashback is a legitimate device,but in this case it's a cheap shot,hoping to grab the audience for what is in evidently going to end up as a courtroom drama albeit one preceded with a fair amount of knee - trembling in various alleyways and lascivious texting(see above). There is also a graphic and gratuitous rape scene to end episode one which can only have been included to make the obvious point that whilst a woman may enjoy rough sex with a lover it doesn't make her game for a drunken workmate. I wouldn't have thought that in 2017 it was necessary to make that statement but presumably the BBC hopes it will do wonders for the viewing figures. "Apple Tree Yard" - the location of one of the lovers' trysting places if grunting up against a brick wall can be called trysting - is made for the chattering classes about the chattering classes. It is a revealing look at how they regard marriage. Obviously it is no impediment against casual and brutal sex with complete strangers and the main characters are dismissive of middle class morality. "Having sex with you is like being eaten by a wolf" texts the 50 - odd year old Geneticist (Miss E.Watson) to her beau (Mr B.Chaplin). Well,I was once bitten by my aunt's Pekinese and I was unable to see the co - relation. Mr Chaplin is something at the Palace of Westminster and is proof it were needed that most of its denizens would be immeasurably improved by death. Apart from establishing his heroic libido,episode one tells us nothing about him. MIiss Watson is married to an apparently cheating husband just so we won't feel so bad. Hopefully episode two will go easier on the cast's knees and backs and give us something to get our teeth into.(Ooops!)