Maxine

I did, but like you I was dubious.
It seems to be portraying her as more 'aware' than she later indicated.
I like how it is concentrating on their relationship. Because from my perspective, that's where my interest lies.
The questions of how much do we know, how much we ignore about ourselves and our relationships.

If this was a salacious retelling of the events, I wouldnt watch.
Poor families, I hope they were at least informed about it beforehand.
Not that they will ever forget.
Maxine Carr has a child/children now I believe, and obviously a new identity.

I didn’t watch it and having read the reviews I am glad I didn’t. Apparently the programme was rather skewed towards her knowing more than she let on. I can still remember the BBC news programme which played the police interview where she was told that Huntley had murdered those girls. Her shock was genuine.

I watched most of it .

I thought that the actress playing Maxine looked like her , but the actor playing Huntley was done up like a ventriloquist's dummy .

If Huntley behaved in the appallingly self engrossed narcissistic way as portrayed - I find it hard to believe that she'd want to stay with and lie for such a man .

I guess that she was head over heels in love with him .

I wonder if the parents of the girls were consulted .

It's such a tragic story .

I saw it too, and like you both I had reservations and was ready to switch off if it got salacious.

If I remember rightly, one of the girls' fathers wrote a book about the murder, and the other's parents weren't happy about that - I can't see this being very easy for them.

I know what you mean about the relationship being portrayed differently from at the time. I wonder where the researchers got their information? I'm not sure how I feel about dramatising the lives of living people.

When I saw it advertised I resolved not to watch it. I can’t believe it’s 20 years ago but it’s still fresh in my mind as is the horror of what happened to those poor children. I don’t think it should have been made.

I couldn't watch that.

True life murder dramas are fascinating and have all been done respectfully I think. We had Manhunt (which linked up to the Millie Dowler case), Des (David Tennant playing Dennis Nilsen), Four Lives (Stephen Merchant as Stephen Port), The Pembrokeshire Murders. They mostly featured the Police investigation or a psychological profile of the killer rather than a drama about the victims and how they were killed.

It feels like yesterday. Before I moved last year I lived six miles from Soham, my children all went to school at the village college and I taught there from 2004/11.

It was an awful time but the Soham community worked hard to move on and not let it define them. They won’t have been looking forward having their town, once again, being a focus of attention.

I am watching it but it angers me to see Maxine Carr being portrayed as a weak ‘victim’ of Huntley’s.

Those who haven’t seen it may not realise that it is not (so far anyway) about the murders. It is, as the title suggests, about Maxine Carr. She is not being glorified, and I don’t think she is portrayed as a victim either. She is in a dysfunctional relationship for sure, but she is part of that dynamic too.

I’m not sure how many more episodes there are left, so things might change I suppose.

I thought the first episode very well done, I too debated shall I watch this, as such awful and tragic murders, but this drama does not focus on the families or the girls.
Merlotgran it must have been terrible for the village of Soham afterwards and hope it is now not feeling renewed anguish for this drama.Like Dunblane and Hungerford, it needs to put the past behind it.

I was working at a Theological College at the time. One of the ordinands was sent to Soham for his first curacy soon after the murders. I remember him as a lovely man with a young family.

I had a holiday in that area a few years ago and loved that part of the world but whenever we drove through or near Soham I felt a black cloud come over me. I couldn’t bear the thought of how the people living there must have felt.

merlotgran I am watching it but it angers me to see Maxine Carr being portrayed as a weak ‘victim’ of Huntley’s.
I don't think she is being portrayed as a weak victim of Huntley's, in fact the reverse. It starts with him being jealous and controlling, but once the crime takes place he becomes weaker and she becomes stronger. He seems unable to control his emotions, so she steps in and takes control, gives him an alibi and a time frame for the crime.

I think that sometimes people decide what they think a TV programme is going to be about before they've even seen it, and stick to that viewpoint regardless of what happens in the programme.

I think it would have been better to see more about their 'story'. So far there doesn't seem to have been much about why she is covering for him, which is the interesting bit.

I didn't watch it.
20 years is two soon to make a drama of this
dreadful murder of children in my opinion.

Any murder of children is dreadful, by definition.

I don't know how I feel about the timing, tbh. At first I did think that it might be tasteless, but I don't think it is done tastelessly, and is there ever a good time for something like this to be aired? I do think that drama which explores human motivation is worthwhile though, and if we boycotted that, we'd be left with very little apart from gameshows (and even then. . .).

Doodledog I think it would have been better to see more about their 'story'. So far there doesn't seem to have been much about why she is covering for him, which is the interesting bit.
I'm guessing they can only portray what is known about the couple. They can't dig any deeper than than otherwise it would just be speculation. There is always a danger with true life drama (whether crime or not) of embellishing the story by making things up.

The reason she agreed to cover up for him was due to the fact he'd spent time in prison and was petrified at the thought of going back.

I don't think she knew from the start it had been him who had taken the girls.

There's a great deal of artistic licence going on here. We won't know how accurate it is.

We still don't know how the girls died either.

Tragic story. I am watching it but I'm certainly not enjoying it.

Very sad for the families concerned
I do hope they were made aware of it. Must be so hard for those involved to watch. If they do watch it that is

I don't think she knew from the start it had been him who had taken the girls.
They have played this fairly loosely, it's not clear in the drama, although she is seeing a lot of clues which indicate something happened. It's as though she is being given the evidence but doesn't want to believe it. So is she protecting him because he is scared to go to prison, or because she really knows something has happened?
(I've only watched episode 1)

Chestnut

Doodledog I think it would have been better to see more about their 'story'. So far there doesn't seem to have been much about why she is covering for him, which is the interesting bit.
I'm guessing they can only portray what is known about the couple. They can't dig any deeper than than otherwise it would just be speculation. There is always a danger with true life drama (whether crime or not) of embellishing the story by making things up.

That's all very true. The trouble is that in this case there isn't much of a story, unless there is more to it than was made public at the time.

You are also right that it's not clear whether she knew what had happened or not. I think that's what I am finding unsatisfactory about it all. I wonder what the point is of telling a story that isn't really a story, if that makes sense?

Often, true crime stories can be a bit 'lacking', as we get used to last-minute twists and exciting denouements in drama. If we were going to learn something about the motivation for the crime or for the cover-up there would be a point in making it (IMO), but as it is, I'm not sure what the reasoning behind making this one has been.

I'm struggling to watch it, and know what you mean about it being a bit of a non story from the angle chosen. Maxine seems like an extremely good liar under police interview, almost like she enjoys the attention. I felt sick when she held up the card and talked about the girls.
Without getting inside her head, and I would never even want to, I guess it is difficult to understand what actually made her act as she did, and the programmes can give no real answers.

Comparing this to Manhunt with Martin Clunes, that was a very compelling watch but this isn't. It followed the Police investigation, telling the story from their viewpoint, and what they discovered as they went along. Maybe it would have been better to follow that route rather than tell the story from Maxine's viewpoint. After all, we cannot know what went on inside her head, but we can follow what the Police thought was going on. If they told the story that way.

Yes, it wasn't very good, IMO.

I didn't feel I knew any more at the end than I had at the start, and as I said earlier, I just don't see the point of the series.