The family machinations are interesting to say the least.
As Finchley, Coltrane is a softly spoken, sometime hesitant man who patently adores his wife Marie even though he has had numerous short lived flings throughout their more than 30-year marriage.
Walters is superb as the straight-faced Marie who is Catholic to her core, compassionate to a fault, and chooses to believe her husband is innocent.
She even admits that she has been his confessor and there's nothing he has done that she doesn't know about.
As daughter Dee, Riseborough plays this mentally compromised young woman with the twitches and hesitancy that denote someone with a confused mind superbly.
She was fantastic and her performance is memorable.
Episode One was completely without any hoopla or tricks, it simply showed you the progress of this historical sex case the way it would probably really happen.
For a TV star the case meant massive unwelcome TV, radio and newspaper coverage and the corrosive effect this caused inside the Finchley family walls.
It was real and uncompromising.
Sadly we see how the tabloids all but completely destroy this family because they made up their minds that Finchley is guilty and this is long before any trial.
There are times where I am so ashamed of what media pressure and blistering coverage can do without the real facts, especially the British Tabloids.
Their front pages "if it bleeds it leads-style stories" are hideous with their coverage reaching daily to cab drivers and the public at large who believe everything they read.
The real law says let's wait for the trial.
Or is that simply an old fashioned notion these days.
