We should know by now, from bitter experience, that when a copper is coming up for retirement it's a sure sign that something very, very nasty is about to happen.So when DC Len Harper (David Threlfall) walks out of the nick for the final time we've already guessed that he's soon going to be taking on the biggest challenge of this life. Maybe all police officers should simply start work on the first day of their retirement. It might dramatically improve the crime statistics."What Remains" begins with a flashback as chubby, innocent-faced Melissa (Jessica Gunning) moves into the attic flat of No 8 Coulthard Street. Something about Melissa says "victim" right away. We fear for her safety. Our sphincters twitch uncontrollably in our trousers.Clearly something's not quite right about this house. For a start, it looks exactly like the property in Simon Pegg's "Spaced", and several of the residents appear to have recently relocated from either Lark Rise or Candleford. There's also at least one familiar face from "Luther" which is scary in itself.Poor old Melissa should pack her bags and leave right away, but instead, in true "Scooby Doo" fashion, she climbs up into the loft on her own and gets strangled by a mysterious stranger.So, whodunnit? Grumpy old maths teacher Joe Sellers (David Bamber) is straight into the frame. For a start he has one of his ex-pupils Liz (Denise Gough) locked up in the basement, and he tups her wheezily at every opportunity. Meanwhile young Liz is less of a prisoner than we might think, and is secretly boffing the big eared boy from upstairs (Russell Tovey), while his very pregnant girlfriend is busy painting the nursery an unpleasant shade of duck egg blue.While all this is going on, we discover that prior to the murder Kieron Moss (Steven Mackintosh) was cheating on his journalist girlfriend Patricia (Claudie Blakley) by regularly popping upstairs and using poor Melissa as a human trampoline. Following this athletic intercourse it's hard to see how the architectural integrity of the house survived, but somehow the building remained standing long enough for the murder to take place.Other suspects include a couple of bitchy lesbians on the second floor (one of whom likes to bully the other by tying her up with straps), and Kieron's teenage son Adam, who spends the whole time trying to get into the knickers of his father's girlfriend. What's not to like? Everything and everybody.I enjoyed this 4 part BBC1 drama, but it really was quite difficult to identify with any of the characters. They were all, at best, flawed, and most of them were just downright nasty.Even with this in mind, I don't think any of us were prepared for the final episode, which left the claustrophobic and carefully distressed set littered with corpses and splattered with claret.There was us thinking there was only one killer on the loose, and the woodwork turned out to be crawling with psychopaths – the denouement making the climax of Macbeth look like a picnic scene from The Famous Five.OK, it was all a bit contrived, particularly when DC Len reached for his bow and arrow, but the twists and turns were so expertly engineered by writer Tony Basgallop that in the end we would forgive him anything.Stylishly directed by Coky Giedroyc, "What Remains" turned out to be one of my favourite drama series of 2013 so far, but sadly I don't think there's going to be a second series. Everyone's dead.Read more TV reviews at Mouthbox.co.uk

This review is ABOUT the ending, but it doesn't reveal the ending.I just sat through the 4-part "What Remains," about the various characters in a small apartment house, and a retired detective's obsession with finding out what happened to an overweight girl whose body was found in the attic and whose disappearance had gone unnoticed for two years. I found it easily held my interest until the end, when it decided to have multiple endings. I'm always disappointed with British mysteries when they do that. I expect them to be mature enough to play out their mystery and denouement and say "that's it," but too often shows like this will lose faith in the resolution of the story, and think they have to throw in a twist or two or three at the end to give a shock to the sheeple. It just seems very immature and destroys any credibility the story had. Like the end of FATAL ATTRACTION, when the murderous woman is drowned in the bathtub, but that's not enough, so they have her jump out of the water ready to kill and the wife shoots her, because she suddenly has a gun and knows how to use it. It's a cheap gimmick you'd expect to find in crappy horror films, not a fine British drama. MAYDAY, from earlier this year, was another decent drama that twisted and was ultimately a complete cheat at the end.I would have rated this program an 8 or better if not for the ending.

This is a, outstanding drama in which suspense is created by uncertainty about the true nature of the characters in a house. The unexplained death of a very overweight, shy, lonely female tenant in the house is the start of an endeavour to get to the truth by a detective who is retiring on the day her body is found. His dogged continuation of the investigation after his retirement seems partly based on his own shock at the loneliness and insignificance of his own life outside the workplace.The sense of alienation between neighbours and the themes of isolation, loneliness and secrecy simmer. The acting is uniformly outstanding and the house menacing. The ending is surprising, but believable and David Threlfall's performance is compelling throughout.

My husband and I have been very intrigued and thoroughly enjoying the "What Remains" series! I had not seen any information at all when I watched the first episode and wasn't sure what kind of series it was going to be at all.I will concede that the first episode is a bit slow, but this is because they are setting the stage and introducing the players. The story is very enthralling as more and more of the young woman's life (as well as the inter-relations with her neighbours) are exposed by the investigation.It is an interesting, if sad, commentary on today's self-focused lifestyle, where people don't know their neighbours and how that allows for all manner of unsavory secrets up to and possibly including murder!It is spectacularly acted and directed. Having only opportunity to watch the first two episodes, I am looking forward to episode 3 and 4!