Spoilers ahead.

Thirteen is a five episode drama and the first series to come from the new online BBC 3. Thirteen follows the story of Ivy, a girl held captive by a man for thirteen years before she makes her escape aged 26. Ivy’s world is turned on its head as she is still stuck back before the ordeal while her friends and family have moved on. Her younger sister is getting married, the boy she loved is married and her parents have divorced.

While Ivy comes to terms with what has changed so do her family and friends as they have to work out what really matters and what doesn’t. While Ivy’s captor is on the run, however, he kidnaps another girl, the ten year old Phoebe. This makes the whole scenario more prominent and gives the detectives even more of a reason to find the captor soon.

There is plenty of character development and storylines within this drama. From Ivy’s new life to the detective’s love affair and the parents’ working out their differences and flirting with the idea of getting together. The story takes many twists and turns and always leaves you on the edge of your seat. A terribly brilliant part of the drama is that each episode, besides the finale, ends on a cliffhanger so it always leaves you wanting more.

Let’s talk finale as I have just mentioned it. In all honesty I was a bit disappointed. I felt it left a lot of unanswered questions and felt rushed. As it was the show’s main climax it was a bit of a let down as there was a lot happening in one episode without a lot of depth. For those who have watched it let me leave you with some of my questions that maybe you could help me answer:

• Why was Ivy chosen in the first place?
• Why was Ivy so off with the police?
• Why Phoebe?
• And why was Ivy so cool with her captor before (i.e the CCTV footage) but later is shown to hate him?

If you could help me get to the bottom of these that would be ever so helpful. I felt like the actual ending was very lukewarm and tied everything together way too quickly. The captor just dies and that’s that. Happy endings for all I guess. I also felt like they found Ivy way too quickly especially with the mediocre drawing that got them to that point.

I will say though, up until the finale, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The acting was absolutely amazing, the music and style of the scenes were stunning and the build up was so cleverly put together…just a shame about the finale.

But then again that’s my opinion. What did you think of Thirteen? I hope the BBC make more dramas like this in the future.

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Film and TV critic. View all posts by shonaharding