Like Father Like Son (TV series)

Like Father, Like Son is a British television crime drama series first broadcast on ITV from 24 to 25 January 2005. The two-part serial stars Robson Green and Jemma Redgrave as the would-be step-father and mother of a young boy who is suspected of a murder of a fellow school pupil, after meeting with his father for the first time since his incarceration for a quadruple murder. The serial achieved good viewing figures, upward of 8m.[1]

Like Father Like Son
GenreCrime drama
Created byShaun McKenna
Written byShaun McKenna
Directed byNicholas Laughland
StarringRobson Green
Jemma Redgrave
Georgia Moffett
Phil Davis
Tara Fitzgerald
Francesca Fowler
ComposerJohn Lunn
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of series1
No. of episodes2 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producersMatthew Arlidge
Douglas Rae
ProducerJeremy Gwilt
Running time90 mins. (w/ advertisements)
Production companyEcosse Films
Release
Original networkITV
Original release24 January (2005-01-24) –
25 January 2005 (2005-01-25)

The serial was released on DVD on 7 March 2005.[2]

Critical reception

Richard Scheib of the New Zealand Horror and Fantasy Film Review said of the series;[3]

"For a relatively novice screenwriter, Shaun McKenna does an excellent job. The script sets up an interesting divide as to whether the killer is Jemma Redgrave’s son Somerset Prew, who may have been seduced and corrupted by his serial killer father or whether it is Jemma’s fiancée, Robson Green. There is a nice sense of mirroring throughout the script – how Jemma Redgrave’s husband was a killer who secretly strangled women, and how her husband-to-be Robson Green has a secret about his wife being strangled; how both of the prospective suspects had an obsession with Morag; how Jemma suddenly realises that she has gone from one husband who was secretly a killer to discovering that her prospective husband might also secretly be a killer too. These various aspects weave together and apart, circling around differing suspicions with considerable cleverness. It is an extremely adept script. Shaun McKenna even writes a scene that quite takes one aback, which offers up an interpretation of the strangling of Desdemona in Shakespeare’s Othello in terms of sexual jealousy.


Nick Laughland creates some genuinely creepy scenes where young Somerset Prew goes to see his father in jail and we can see the father starting to psychologically play with his mind and draw him into his web. Phil Davis, the actor playing the father, gives a thuggishly nasty performance. He has been made up to look almost albinoid, although the credibility gap here is that Davis is made to seem so uncouth and cruel and as we never get to see any of his charm, we wonder what could possibly attract a nice girl like Jemma Redgrave to him. There is a nicely written scene where Jemma Redgrave goes to see him and pleads for him to leave their son alone, only to be rebuffed with the nasty suggestion that he is entitled to conjugal visits."

Cast

Episode list
# Title Directed by Written by Original air date UK viewers
(millions)[4]
1"Episode 1"Nicholas LauglandShaun McKenna24 January 2005 (2005-01-24)8.46m
Life for Dee Stanton is improving at every turn. Her legal career is blossoming and her boyfriend Dominic unexpectedly proposes to her. Things were very different eleven years ago when her husband Paul was jailed for the brutal murders of four girls, and Dee was hounded from her home. Dee has kept all this a secret from her fifteen-year-old son Jamie. Now he has discovered the truth about his father - and demands to see him. When a young girl is murdered at her son's school, Dee and Dominic begin to suspect that their son might be following in the father's murderous footsteps.
2"Episode 2"Nicholas LaughlandShaun McKenna25 January 2005 (2005-01-25)7.81m
Dominic is cleared of all charges, but Jamie comes under scrutiny when evidence in Morag's murder inquiry begins pointing to him - so Dee rashly provides her son with an alibi. Things go from bad to worse for the unfortunate teenager, however, when he is found with his hands at a comatose Abi's throat.

References
  1. "Like Father, Like Son (TV Series)".
  2. "Like Father Like Son - Robson Green & Jemma Redgrave". Amazon UK. 7 March 2005.
  3. "Like Father Like Son (2005)". 23 September 2007.
  4. "Weekly top 30 programmes on TV sets (July 1998 – Sept 2018) | BARB".
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