police
True Detective, Sky AtlanticSunday, 23 February 2014![]() You could boil down the content of this new HBO import to an info-bite that reads "two detectives hunt serial killer in Louisiana", but that wouldn't give you the faintest inkling of the pace, mood or texture of what's shaping up as a remarkable... Read more... |
DCI Banks, ITVMonday, 10 February 2014![]() Mothers and their sons provided the framework for the latest story involving DCI Alan Banks, the character on whom ITV is pinning its hopes to fill the vacancy of the nation’s favourite detective now that Frost and Morse are no more. Peter Robinson’... Read more... |
Inspector George Gently, Series 6, BBC OneFriday, 07 February 2014![]() “I like it when you’re a bastard,” George Gently growled at his sidekick, halfway into the first episode of this sixth series set in 1960s Northumberland, reassuring us that the partnership is very much back on when all appeared to be lost the last... Read more... |
Silent Witness, BBC OneSaturday, 25 January 2014![]() Such is the level of confidence that the Silent Witness producers have in their new ensemble that star turn Emilia Fox barely lifted a scalpel in the latest instalment of the BBC’s long-running crime series. Either that or she needed a night or two... Read more... |
The Great Train Robbery - a Robber's Tale, BBC OneThursday, 19 December 2013![]() We've already been casting a revisionary eye over Lord Lucan, the Cold War, the Kennedy assassination and the Profumo affair. Last year Sheridan Smith portrayed Mrs Ronnie Biggs for ITV, but what took them so long to get around to the Great Train... Read more... |
Sifting the Evidence: the Great Train Robbery, 50 Years OnTuesday, 17 December 2013![]() There’s a wonderful moment in Bruce Reynolds’s autobiography when he describes what became of his mate, a fellow train robber who had fled to Canada but was hunted down by the enigmatic Tommy Butler. Four and a half years after the Great Train... Read more... |
Ripper Street, Series 2 Finale, BBC OneTuesday, 17 December 2013![]() Though greeted ambivalently when it made its debut at the end of 2012, Ripper Street has looked increasingly like TV's undervalued secret weapon as it has surged purposefully through this second series. Maybe the title was misjudged, suggesting it... Read more... |
The Tunnel, Sky AtlanticThursday, 17 October 2013![]() If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the creators of Scandinavia's drama boom could be forgiven if they started behaving like a collection of hysterical Justin Biebers. Not only are their home-grown series hits around the world, they're... Read more... |
FilthThursday, 03 October 2013![]() Not long ago James McAvoy finished a brutal run as Macbeth, and he’s back in Filth as another manic Scotsman hurtling towards self-destruction. The setting is Nineties Edinburgh, and his character, dodgy policeman Bruce Robertson, has a... Read more... |
New Tricks, BBC OneWednesday, 07 August 2013![]() Moving the action to an exotic location is usually a sign of desperation when a character-based drama is flagging on home turf. New Tricks, most at ease in Soho and Stepney, hobbled into its tenth series with a two-parter set in Gibraltar – which is... Read more... |
The HeatWednesday, 31 July 2013![]() The basic set-up for The Heat is familiar – two mismatched cops are thrown together on a case and have to find a way of working together despite their differences in social background and methods – only in this case the officers are female. Add to... Read more... |
Luther, Series 3, BBC OneWednesday, 03 July 2013![]() The ancients teach us that after hubris comes nemesis, and Luther's writer/creator Neil Cross has taken the lesson to heart. The big question hanging over this third series is, can the bullish DCI John Luther continue to hunt villains in his own... Read more... |
