# What Remains (2013)

> A detective investigates how a woman's decomposed body came to be found in a flat without anyone having noticed she was missing.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/51788

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 4
- Episode runtime: 60 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: crime, mystery, drama
- Created by: Tony Basgallop
- Network: BBC One
- Cast: David Threlfall, Denise Gough, Lisa Millett, Alexander Arnold, David Bamber, Claudie Blakley, Jessica Gunning, Victoria Hamilton
- TMDB rating: 7.4/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2649588/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: moderate
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: mild
- Tone: melancholic, bleak, contemplative, unsettling, sombre

## What critics say

Audience reception is positive, with viewers rating the four-part police mystery favorably for its tense investigation.

## Synopsis

What Remains (2013) is a British miniseries created by Tony Basgallop for BBC One, a four-episode murder mystery that unfolds in a single contained run. When the decomposed body of Melissa Young (Jessica Gunning) is discovered by a couple settling into a new flat, dogged detective Len Harper (David Threlfall) becomes fixated on a harder question than who killed her: why nobody noticed she was gone. Working alongside DCI Alice Yapp (Lisa Millett) and Liz Fletcher (Denise Gough), Harper pushes through a web of neighbours, acquaintances and household secrets in a house whose residents have each kept their own distance. Each episode peels back another layer of the investigation, building a patient, claustrophobic study of isolation in contemporary Britain. The tone is quiet, unsettling and melancholic rather than flashy, with a grounded procedural rhythm. Fans of Broadchurch, The Missing and Unforgotten will find resonance in its sombre British detective atmosphere, its attention to a community's indifference, and its slow accumulation of unease. Its appeal lies in the interplay between investigation and the ordinary lives around it.

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