By Philip Cunnington

Copyright scotsman

Because after watching the first two episodes this week, it’s not entirely clear.

It’s not really a thriller, although there are some thriller-style elements to it, not least the fact it starts with that most obvious of ITV thriller tropes – someone running, panicked, through the night before a flashback.

It’s not really a comedy, either, although there are elements of farce – protagonist John (Andrew Lincoln) rushing home after a rare night on the lash and having a mug of water thrown over him to make it appear he’s been in the shower.

Then there are pastoral-horror elements, as John, wife Fi (Indira Varma) and the children flee inner city London for a village in the Highlands after a sudden and shocking outbreak of violence.

It’s the type of village with a resident weird bloke who lives in a caravan in the woods and is best avoided, a men-only Bible study group with a taste for serial killer biographies, and a happy-clappy vicar who doesn’t believe in God.

The type of village, in fact, where it would not come as a surprise to turn a corner and find a gaggle of naked residents chanting while building a large male effigy out of sticks.

It could also be a treatise on modern masculinity, with John a house-husband perpetually afraid of other men, easily-led by more dominant characters and emasculated by his successful, ambitious wife.

Does he get taken in by the toxic alpha male-ness of the burly types in the village, or will his equality first metrosexualism win out?

Or is it a parable? That we should be careful what we wish for, that the rural idyll viewed from our urban hell-holes is a lie, and that the only way to fix things is to stand up and do something to help the communities we find ourselves in.

It’s all very confusing, and the performances don’t help.

Lincoln plays John with white-faced nervousness, constantly jumping at his own shadow, channelling the floundering everyman of Simon, the lead he played in Channel 4 comedy Teachers.

As his wife, Varma is in a gender roles drama, while Ewen Bremner as neighbour Tommy comes over all Begbie, with a reptilian evil and his wife Rebecca – the modern vicar, played by Eve Myles – is in a sitcom, all kisses on the lips and boozy dinner parties.

If the cast can’t make head or tail of it, the viewers are left similarly floundering, with moments of comedy as John gets trapped in another silly situation of his own making, punctuated by moments of extreme violence – a friendly mum gets beaten up in the park, or someone meets an unfortunate demise on the end of a conveniently-placed rock.

In the end, Coldwater wants to come down to the fight between good and evil. There’s lots of talk about whether or not John is good or evil – Tommy continually reassures him that he’s a good man inside, while his children are more blunt: “Daddy’s not evil, he’s just useless and old.”

Maybe that’s the nub of it all, that isn’t not enough to be ‘good inside’, that way you end up useless and old.

To be truly good, you have to do something, to stand up and be counted, to stay and face your fears and troubles, rather than running off to the Highlands at the first sign of an Asbo.

The trouble is, by the time you’ve sifted through the thriller, the comedy, the horror, the farce, the drama, you’re completely lost and in a muddle.

There is the promise of something interesting and weird in Coldwater, but at the moment it’s a puzzle, wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in a bit of mess.