Fifteen-Love

Justine Pearce works as a physiotherapist. Once upon a time, she was a talented tennis star. She competed in a semi-final at the French Open. She had to say goodbye to her career. Why? Because she experienced a painful wrist injury. Glenn Lapthorn, Justine's former tennis coach, left her and went on with his life.

Five years later, Justine runs into Glenn. He's still a tennis coach, but she can't let go of the past.

I don't know very much about tennis. Yes, I come from Sweden, Björn Borg's homeland. And yes, I've seen "Borg vs. McEnroe" (2017). But my knowledge of tennis, and my interest for it, ends somewhere there. In other words, I focused more on the different relationships between the characters.

I like Justine. She's not giving up when it comes to justice. She has certain important goals. At least if you ask me. I also think that she's very strong and beautiful.

And Glenn, well ... he has multiple personalities. I saw the charming gentleman and the violent power abuser. Two different sides in one man. It's quite scary for me. How can Glenn switch between these roles so fast? He must have practiced.

I also liked Anna Chancellor's character. I saw some micro-expressions in her role as Andi Woodward. And I believe that micro-expressions are a little difficult to master.

So what did I miss? Hm ... a bit more romance and revenge. But "Fifteen-Love" is good in my eyes.

I'm a huge tennis fan and I expected this to be full of in accuracies and take liberties in the name of making good TV. And it was utterly inaccurate in just about everything about tennis.

That would be fine if the show itself was good. Unfortunately after a semi decent start it falls of a proverbial cliff in terms of well.. pretty much everything.

Let me list a few of the worst things: Horrible acting from most of the cast, the directing, pacing, script and story are all over the place. You get endless repetitive scenes of the coach talking in a ridiculous voice saying pretty much the same lines.

By episode 3-4 it seems like they're out of ideas or trying to fill time because they reach for pretty much every TV trope you can think of.

The main actress is actually pretty good. Especially for an unknown.

Why use Wimbledon and Roland Garros in a story and you can't even mention it them by name? There are plenty of other big tournaments? Why is the main character acting like she's broke when she would have won nearly £1million from the French Open? Why is the grass completely worn out down to mud on DAY 1 of Wimbledon? Oh and news flash for the writers... tennis players regularly rant and scream at their coaches in front of millions of people - no one cares, it's not the dramatic moment you think it is.

I'm mystified how stuff like this gets made.

I'll admit I only started watching this because it had Aidan Turner in it - and as actor I admire his talent.

No offence to him or to Ella Lily Hyland (or any of the other actors) because it's not their ability as actors that ruin this.

I get that this is important issue, and that the plot in itself was topical. But what on earth happened from its inception to the final production?

It's just dire. I don't know if I'm even going to bother watching the last 3 episodes because I just find it so incredibly predictable, boring and mind numbing. It could have been so much better. That's my word count reached so I'll leave it there.

It's a bit stereotypic, which is pretty obvious from the first few episodes. You can see where this is going. Perhaps not a surprise since its created by (angry?) women who wants to make a statement?

The show is good, the acting is good, the characters are interesting and well played.

One thing is terrible though; the typical issues when making a show about sports. The scenes when they play tennis...why didnt they just skip those? Its terrible! It looks like a bunch of amateurs playing, with a cheering crowd which would have booooed for much less. If these were the ones qualifying for the grand slams, this show would be a total disaster.

Watch it though, and forget about tennis scenes.

Poorly written, directed and acted, but this series still had the opportunity to do something actually brave - provide an example of a FALSE allegation of assault.

It seems that the long line of 'male-predator' series (and movies) must continue without any challenge to its central theme - ALL women tell the truth about sexual assault and violence.

The Amber Heard-Johnny Depp case provided an insight into this issue, as do many, many actual criminal investigations where false allegations result in a jail sentence for the accuser. For a variety of reasons, there are a few Amber Heards out there.

A truly challenging series would address this real issue.