I had high hopes when I saw the cast. But eventually it was tiring to watch. At first it was heart-warming to see people gather to do something good and that they stay united. Nevertheless, I do not like stupidity and pathology. Therefore I understood the feelings of betrayal and hostility towards the "mom" character. She fully presented a dumb woman, destroyed by her life choices (her family was mentioned as a non-pathological), leaving no doubt what sort of human-being she really is. I was sorry for the children, I felt claustrophobic by the number of people coming and going through the neighbours' houses and I felt depressed after watching the series. I don't understand how it can be hinted that if a person had bad life ( because she has no moral compass and likes to give birth to children aparently) she can be rid of responsibility... Stupidity is not an excuse.

The kidnapping of Shannon Mathews is a pitifully grim true life story of Modern Britain . Shannon was a nine year old child who went missing from the Moorside housing estate in Dewsbury . After a month long manhunt and frantic fundraising she was eventually found at the house of one Michael Donovon , uncle of Craig Meehan – the boyfriend of the kidnapped girl's mother, Karen Matthews.As the mystery quickly unravelled it turned out the "kidnapping" was a huge hoax carried out by Karen Matthews , Donovon and Meehan in order to raise money for themselves and they all ended up in jail for it . This two part BBC drama tells the story of the case I came in to this drama with an open mind but found myself rather irritated the way the story is told . The narrative is seen through the eyes of Matthews friend Julie Bushby as she unfailing pulls out all the stops to find the lost child and coming to terms with the betrayal of friendship and friendship continuing in the face of adversity and according to a caption at the end Bushby still stayed in contact while Matthews served her sentence You have to question could the story not have been told better ? A case like this is ripe with ready made black comedy . For example the real life case saw a psychic called Joe Power who somewhat prophetically claimed someone called "Mike" might be behind the kidnapping . "Might" as in "Might not be involved" if Joe had to guard his back as in this case by not noticing the abduction was faked . On a similar note the case was directly inspired by the case of Madeleine McCann whose disappearance led to millions of pounds being raised by a gullible , naïve public but this aspect as a motive is entirely downplayed for whatever reason . It is a relatively well made and acted drama but trying to paint greedy , ignorant , selfish lumpen proles who'd traumatized their own kin in order to make money in a sympathetic light doesn't work for me I'm afraid

This sad episode is perhaps too recent to view objectively. The deeply flawed Karen Matthews was nobody's idea of a paragon of the maternal virtues but surely she could not have been as stupid as this production has portrayed her.Nor can her friends have been so sheep - like,just ready for someone - anyone - to tell them what to do. Obligingly along comes Miss S.Smith as a gobby advocate for the Moorside who sees the opportunity for what she sees as being helpful as well as seizing her 15 minutes at the same time as winding up the Old Bill and bullying her neighbours into doing her wishes without really thinking about the possibility that she might be harming the child's chance of being found alive. Puffy eyed and heavy of face,Miss Smith is a stranger to restraint as the single mother brow - beating and threatening her way to a TV spot as the hunt for the child grows wider. Only her friend Natalie(excellent Miss S.Brooke) is willing to stand up to her. As we all know the outcome of this incident there was no tension,merely a vague anxiety about what Miss Smith might do when she finds out that she(and all the others)has been played for a mug. Best performance by far is by Miss S.Finneran as this Detective who is unfortunate enough to be Family Liaison. The guy who plays Karen Matthews' partner looked so much like Radar O' Reilly that I giggled every time he came on screen.Presumably not the affect he was supposed to create. I understand the intention of "The Moorside" was to present a more positive image for the residents,but I'm afraid that in that it has not succeeded.

I've only seen the first episode but I can be confident that my rating isn't going to change and neither will my opinion of this program.Firstly, don't watch it if you think you're going to find out anything you didn't already know from TV and newspaper reports. Don't watch it if you want to see sweeping camera shots of Dewsbury and the surrounding countryside. It wasn't filmed there.You'll watch this because it was written by Neil Mckay who has written some great TV in the past. He's written TV shows about the Moors Murderers and Fred & Rose West. You have to remember that when shows like this are written there will be some added drama that didn't actually happen so as to sex up the show.The problem with this show is that it's impossible to sex up so there's lots of dialogue showing the "can-do" attitude of the residents of The Moorside estate. Whether much of it actually happened is questionable, however, the actresses did spend time with their real-life counterparts so there will be some true to life scenes and dialogue.For me, it was exactly what I expected from a show on this subject.