Sherwood · Season 1 · BBC iPlayer
Sherwood Season 1
Sherwood Season 1 is a MUST-WATCH, BollyMeter 9.0/10. 6 episodes on BBC iPlayer from 13 June 2022.
Updated
What BollyAI Thinks
James Graham's six-part debut arrived on BBC One in June 2022 and met an immediate critical consensus: 100% on Rotten Tomatoes from 16 reviews, a Metacritic score of 87. The premise draws from real 2004 killings in Nottinghamshire, but Graham's achievement is the way he layers those murders over the unhealed fractures of the 1984-85 miners' strike - community members who crossed picket lines, undercover officers who never left, loyalties that curdled across four decades. Critics across the board - The Telegraph awarding five stars, The Guardian's Lucy Mangan matching them - pointed to the ensemble as the engine: David Morrissey, Lesley Manville, Claire Rushbrook and Adeel Akhtar (who won BAFTA Supporting Actor for his performance) delivering exactly the kind of specificity that separates British crime drama from its more procedural cousins. The season works as a self-contained tragedy and as a provocation about what happens when a state spies on its own people.
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The Room
“In the clarity of its storytelling and the authenticity of its atmosphere, Sherwood split the bullseye.”
The Telegraph“A gripping mystery that draws immense power from its sterling cast and the specificity of its location.”
Rotten Tomatoes Critics Consensus
Standout Episodes
The hours worth arguing about - premieres, finales, and the turning points. BollyAI reads the room episode by episode.
- E1Episode 18.8
The opening hour establishes the Nottinghamshire community with documentary exactness before the first murder detonates it. Graham's writing plants the strike-era trauma in domestic detail - the language neighbours use with each other, the silences at family dinners - so that when violence arrives it feels historically inevitable rather than sensational.
The moment: The reveal that the community is already divided along strike-era fault lines before the investigation even begins.
- E6Episode 69.1
The finale delivers on every thread without tidying them - the crimes are resolved but the community is not, and the closing images make clear that forty years of grievance cannot be prosecuted away. The Guardian awarded five stars and noted the series never faltered in its intricate plotting.
The moment: The final confrontation that forces characters to choose which version of loyalty they can live with.
“Didn't falter in its intricate plotting, attention to detail or its perfect evocation of place.” - The Guardian