Stayed with it as long as I could because Peake is mesmerizing and the courtroom dialogue is very intelligent. But finally gave up because of the consistent, overbearing presentation of each criminal as a victim and the police consistently as "loathsome." A bit of balance would have been welcome.

We've had, and likely always will have, lots of legal dramas, from serious and dark to outright comedy. There's lot of dramatic gold to mine in this genre. In the US - Boston Legal, LA Law, Ally McBeal, Perry Mason and many more - in the UK - Kavanagh QC, Judge John Deed, Justice, Rumpole of the Bailey, The Main Chance (that was the 1960s), Garrows Law (historical) and lots of others. It's a well worn genre with plenty of scope for human interest, convoluted and clever story telling, contemporary themes, triumph of honesty over adversity, love and darkness. Now, I'm not a lawyer, and as to the accuracy of the portrayals of the protagonists, both legal and criminal, in "Silk" I'm not one to judge. For instance, I am a doctor, and had to stop watching "House" as the episodes became ever more bizarre and a travesty of medical life and practice. I couldn't take the drama seriously enough to continue to follow the series.. However, I'd rate "Silk" pretty highly - for its high production values and truly excellent acting, along with stories of contemporary interest ( many seeming to arise from factual occurrences), with underlying themes from episode to episode of the more personal dramas in the Shoe Lane practice with it's three main protagonists - , Billy, the Machiavellian clerk who has accumulated to himself much power through his misuse of his position of trust and his self-appointed role as a sort of Godfather of the practice; Martha - the out of place northerner and female to boot, a feisty, intelligent, articulate and scrupulously honest rising legal star; her colleague Clive - superficially charming but a rather devious, emotionally unreliable and inadequate personally, but who comes over as a surprisingly sympathetic character and is actually a very good and humane barrister. Their interactions with a few less prominent other members of the firm, and with a succession of legal apprentices, makes up the rest of each week's stories. In the genre of legal dramas I'd rate "Silk" very highly indeed - it's good television, entertaining, exciting at times, humorous at others and sometimes challenging and thought provoking. What more could anyone wish for sitting in front of their TV screen for an hour? I've been watching them again recently on Netflix, and without the intrusive adverts and with its improved picture quality, the series is even better than I remember when it was first broadcast.

I really enjoyed watching every episodes of this series. I also watch The GOOD WIFE but at times do get very irritated with that series. Not with SILK. My son is studying law and so the interest in watching these courtroom dramas. The acting in SILK was very good, and the lead character Martha, a very likable character. This series gives you an insight into how law is practiced in the UK. It's not slick like The Good Wife, but more realistic. I can't wait for series 2. If you want to watch a really good drama with some fine acting, good realistic courtroom scenes and some office politics and intrigues then go no further than SILK. I wish the BBC would produce more fine dramas like this.

I like a good legal drama, Rumpole of the Bailey, Kavanagh QC and Perry Mason are especially great, so I had high hopes for Silk. And I really enjoyed it on the whole, as did my parents and sister, who is studying law at college.Now I do agree about some parts of the drama being on the unrealistic side, the episode with the racist police officer wasn't as solid in the legal details as the rest of the episodes and I didn't completely buy how quickly Martha Castello came back to work after her miscarriage. In fairness though, I did find some aspects of Judge John Deed unrealistic.That said, Silk is a great programme that ranks among my favourite TV series airing so far this year. Visually, Silk is quite stylish with skillful camera work and striking location shooting. I quite like the music too, the main theme is very driven and does stick in your head for a long time after, decide for yourself whether that is a good thing or not, I personally loved the main theme while my brother found it annoying. And the background scoring is beautiful, haunting and does a credible enough job to bring some flavour to the scene it features in without intruding too much.I was quite impressed with the series' writing. It is often thoughtful and intelligent with the odd spot of wry humour, such as how Maxine Peake uttered some of her lines in the first episode. It is even better though in the courtroom scenes which are really quite tense sometimes yet always compelling, some of the verbal sparring and observations between Castello and the witnesses are a real joy. The stories are constantly interesting, well-structured and well-paced, the direction throughout is taut and the characters are at least credible and not too sketchy.The acting also helps lift. I especially want to praise Maxine Peake, who is just wonderful here. Her facial expressions and gestures are wonderfully judged and her delivery of lines is a joy to behold in that she especially made some of the weaker dialogue of the first episode in particular seem credible! It was also great seeing Rupert Penry Jones playing a complete ass while also showing a somewhat sympathetic side. There were also some enjoyable supporting performances, with old favourite Adrian Dunbar in the final episode standing out amongst others.All in all, a great series even with the lack of realism. I also hope there is another series, as this showed so much promise, though unlike some of the gems of last year like Garrow's Law and Sherlock, Silk doesn't fall into the trap of being too short. 9/10 Bethany Cox