Broadchurch on DVD

DVD: ★★★★½
Extras: ★★★★

IT'S BEEN the most talked about crime series of the year and a real triumph for ITV. Audiences and critics were gripped by the whodunit and  seven million people were tuning in, which in these multi-channel days is a blockbuster figure.

But despite all the hoo-haa about whether young Danny's killer was his dad or his friend or the vicar or creepy Susan, the eight-part drama had a lot more to it than the jaded mechanics of a traditional whodunit.

Broadchurch broke the mould of police procedurals by discarding the corpse before each ad break that is the norm in shows such as Midsomer and Lewis along with the clever detectives deducing who the perpetrator was. It was about the gut-wrenching tragedy of the Latimer family, the behaviour of the press, the strife at the police station and the role of the church.

It was beautifully written by Chris Chibnall and had a first class cast, headed by David Tennant and Olivia Colman, brilliantly supported by Jodie Whittaker, Andrew Buchan, Vicky McClure, Arthur Darvill, Pauline Quirke and Will Mellor.

Chibnall reveals in the excellent special features on this new DVD release that he wrote the drama on spec because it was something he really wanted to write. And that desire to produce a really good, heartfelt  story before taking it to ITV is perhaps the secret to its success.

• Broadchurch on DVD, released 20 May, running time 400 minutes on three discs. RRP: £25.99. Cert TBC

PRIZE DRAW

We have one copy of the complete series of Broadchurch worth £25.99 to give away. All you have to do is join the CrimeTimePreview gang (see the column on the right) to enter a prize draw for this fantastic series. The first name drawn on the closing date of Friday, 24 May, will be sent a copy of the DVD.
This offer is open to UK residents only. Prize Draw entrants must register as members of CrimeTimePreview (see column, right); one name will be drawn on the closing date (Friday, 24 May) and will be posted a free copy of Broadchurch. The selectee will need to provide their postal address. No prize alternatives. If anyone registers but declines the Broadchurch DVD, an alternative winner will be selected. Good luck!

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Case Histories series 2, BBC1, starring Jason Isaacs PREVIEW

Jackson Brodie and sidekick in Case Histories. Pics: BBC

Rating: ★★★★

BBC1: starts Sunday, 19 May, 8.30pm

Story: Back in Edinburgh after a child-snatching job in Munich goes awry, Jackson is offered a new case when Hope McMaster, a woman searching for her birth parents, approaches him for help.

NOVELIST KATE ATKINSON doesn't write traditional crime stories, and so this fine new series of dramas based on her books are more off-beat family sagas with a large helping of mystery thrown in.

It's good to see Jason Isaacs back as Jackson Brodie, the private investigator and knight with no shining armour. Hence, the many cuts and bruises he picks up while helping those who cross his path – in the this opening episode he even takes in a stray dog.

In fact, waifs and strays is the theme of the opening 90-minute story. There's a high-adrenaline start as Jackson attempts to retrieve a girl in Germany to return her to her mother — or so he thinks. It turns out he's been duped, and the girl is being given to the father.

Brodie delves into a case of police corruption and murder

Courtney, Tracy and Jackson

Feeling guilty, Brodie returns to Edinburgh, where he's offered a case by a young Aussie woman, Hope, who wants to trace her birth parents. This is a thorny inquiry that leads him back into a secret buried for 35 years amid police corruption and murder.

Meanwhile, Victoria Wood turns up as a store detective who has an altercation with a woman who's been whacking her little girl, Courtney. Events turn from violent to bizarre as Tracy, Woods' character, ends up walking away with Courtney. It's a performance full of heart from the comedian and actress.

There are dark events, but also humour and pathos. Tracy's stroppy, tubby store cop boss says to Brodie, 'My name's Rod, as in Rod Stewart.' To which Brodie replies, 'You've let yourself go a bit, Rod.'

Jason Isaacs as the heroic, reckless Brodie

The soundtrack ranges from jaunty to soulful, and Edinburgh's 50 shades of grey skies are beautifully shot.

And of course there's Brodie, the man who can't resist helping those in need despite usually paying a high price himself. We last met him in 2011 and it's been worth the wait for this short series' comeback (in the meantime Jason Isaacs' has been off making the supernatural cop show Awake in the US and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2).

Since then Kate Atkinson's hero has lost the wonderful Louise to a new 'boring' fiancé, and his daughter Marlee and ex wife are now in New Zealand. Isaacs brings a fine quality of crumpled heroism to Brodie, mixed with a dash of recklessness.

Unfinished business with Louise?

Barry (Tracy's partner) and DCI Louise Munroe

He flattens a skinhead he sees beating his dog in the park, and spends the rest of the episode with the mutt in tow. At the end he also strikes a dangerous deal with the man who double-crossed him over the custody snatch in Germany so that he can help Tracy, but we know it's sure to rebound on Brodie later.

Young Marlee also has a shock announcement for her dad, and there is likely to be unfinished business with Louise. It's a shame there are only three instalments of this latest series.

Case Histories is a distinctive drama with great characters – and far more enjoyable than most formulaic cop procedurals filling the TV schedules.

Cast: Jason Isaacs Jackson Brodie, Emma Hamilton Hope McMaster, Victoria Wood Tracy Waterhouse, Gary Lewis Barry, James Cosmo Len Lomax, Maurice Roeves Ray Strickland, Amanda Abbington Louise, Zawe Ashton Deborah, Millie Innes Marlee

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The Fall episode 1 — What we're watching

Gillian Anderson as Stella Gibson. Pics: BBC

Writer/blogger Pat Nurse settles down to watch the opening episode of BBC2's The Fall – through her fingers…

HANG ON to the edge of your seat, peek through your fingers if you must, but be prepared for a fast-paced, disturbing new thriller that will have you hooked.

The Fall, BBC2's new crime drama set in Belfast, started on Monday night and sees Gillian Anderson as the Metropolitan police detective Stella Gibson sent over to review an unsolved murder case, which she soon suspects is part of a series of killings by the same person.   

The Irish assistant chief constable (John Lynch) doesn’t believe her — or doesn’t want to — but the viewer knows Gibson is right. We’ve met and followed the murderer Paul Spector, played with chilling perfection by actor Jamie Dornan.  

Stalker Paul Spector

In his 'normal' life he is a conventionally married father of two young children. In his other life, he is perverse, violent, and appears to relieve the stress of his demanding family with murder, torture and the control of professional young women that he stalks.  

It’s impossible not to feel a shudder as he enters victim Sarah Kay’s house, when she’s not in, and rummages through her underwear, leaving traces of his presence like a dog leaving a scent.  

Sarah, played by Laura Donnelly, finds her underwear laid out on her bed and calls the police, who don’t take her too seriously — until it’s too late.

Anderson plays a strong female character that reminded me of Helen Mirren’s Jane

Sarah is targeted

Tennison in Prime Suspect — parts of which were also written by The Fall writer Alan Cubit.  

Part two is on next Monday (BBC 2, 9pm). The victim will be found, Gibson’s worst fears that a serial killer is on the loose will be realised, but first Spector takes his time in killing and torturing the woman, so be prepared for gore — or do as I do, hide from the worst of it by peeking through your fingers. Then find a comedy to watch before bedtime. The Fall could well give you nightmares.  

• What did you think of The Fall? Comment below…

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The Suspicions of Mr Whicher 2, ITV, with Paddy Considine, Olivia Colman PREVIEW

Shaun Dingwall as Inspector Lock and Paddy Considine as Jack Whicher. Pics: ITV

Rating: ★★★★

ITV: Sunday, 12 May, 8pm

Story: Jack Whicher is no longer an inspector and has left the Metropolitan Police under a cloud. But when he saves a country lady from a robbery in a dangerous quarter of London, he learns that this woman, Susan Spencer, is desperately hunting for her vulnerable young niece, Mary.

KATE SUMMERSCALE uncovered a quite jaw-droppingly fascinating Victorian tale when she wrote her non-fiction book The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, which ITV then made into an engrossing drama in 2011.

This second film, again starring Paddy Considine, steps away from fact into fiction by imagining how the real Inspector Whicher got on following the ignominy of failing to solve the Murder at Road Hill House in 1860. Whicher suspected the correct culprit – Constance Kent – of murdering her younger half brother, Francis, but failed to bring her to trial.

Olivia Colman as Susan

Private inquiry agent
Constance later confessed and went to jail (her death sentence was commuted) and she lived to a ripe old 100 years anonymously in Australia. Whicher, one of a new breed of detectives and an inspiration for Charles Dickens's Inspector Bucket, found it hard to live down his failure to secure conviction, and had ruffled the feathers of his social superiors for his conduct of an investigation into a well-to-do family.

Summerscale's book reveals that Whicher married his landlady, Charlotte Piper, in 1866 and the next year was working as a private inquiry agent, though he probably didn't need the money as he had a decent police pension.

Searching for a vulnerable young woman in dangerous London
The new film, entitled The Murder in Angel Lane, is written by Bafta-winner Neil McKay (Appropriate Adult, Mo, Heartbeat) and based on further historical research.

So fictional Whicher comes to the aid of a country lady, Susan Spencer, who's had her purse clipped by a thief in a rough inn in London. She reveals she is desperately trying to find her niece, 16-year-old Mary, who is looking for the young man, Stephen Gann, who made her pregnant.

Played with emotional intensity in another terrific performance by Olivia Colman, Susan employs the former inspector to track down Mary.

Will we see more of Jack Whicher?

Going mad? Whicher is incarcerated in the asylum

Whicher is pitched into a puzzling murder inquiry and territorial rows with some of his old police colleagues, arriving eventually at a sinister lunatic asylum – a reminder of how awful those 19th-century institutions could be. It is a complex story of stolen inheritances, murder, police corruption and illegitimate children.

While it lacks the power of the original true story, this new drama is an intriguing insight into a dark side of the Victorian age. The production, acting and writing are all very sharp, and there seems every possibility that Jack Whicher won't be allowed to fade into history just yet and is nicely poised for future investigations.

Cast: Paddy Considine Jack Whicher, Olivia Colman Susan Spencer, William Beck Chief Inspector 'Dolly' Williamson, Tim Pigott-Smith Commissioner Mayne, Shaun Dingwall Inspector George Lock, William Postlethwaite Stephen Gann, Mark Bazeley Thomas Gann, Sean Baker Joshua Gann, Alistair Petrie Dr Casement, Joanna Jeffrees Nursemaid, Siobhan O'Neill Housemaid, Asher Kemp Baby Stephen, Justine Mitchell Sister Anne, Angela Terence Charlotte, Sam Barnard Robert, Justin Edwards Rev Marlow

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Hannibal, Sky Living, with Mads Mikkelsen, Hugh Dancy

Mads Mikkelsen as Lecter and Hugh Dancy as Will Graham in Hannibal. Pics: Sky Living

Rating: ★★★½

Sky Living: Tuesdays, 10pm

Story: FBI man Will Graham is using his psychological empathy and insight into killers to hunt a mass murderer, Garret Jacob Hobbs, when he is assigned a new man to assist him – Dr Hannibal Lecter.

ARE WE NOT OVER Hannibal Lecter? Four novels, five Hollywood movies – but producers think we still want to gorge on tales of the serial killer and gourmand.

Special Agent Will Graham (Hugh Dancy)

So we have this 13-part TV series, which has just started on Sky Living. And pretty grisly it is too, with throat slashings, pools of blood and naked women mounted on the antlers of decapitated deer heads (I decided not to include a picture of that scene).

It's all madly far-fetched, but that's because Hannibal and his fellow serial maniacs are closer to the horror genre than crime. Author Thomas Harris's creations here evoke that other great devourer of humans Dracula, along with Sherlock Holmes, represented by the similarly Asbergers-affected Will Graham, with his totally implausible deductions – 'He has a daughter, same hair [as the victim], same height, she's an only daughter…' How the heck did he work that out?

Hannibal's selling point, of course, is not its believability but its thrills and shocks. These it has in abundance.

Gillian Anderson coming up
In addition, it is slickly filmed and has a good cast. Hugh Dancy, seen recently in The Big C with
Laura Linney, is the straight guy Will Graham to Mads Mikkelsen's charismatic, beautifully dressed Lecter. Perhaps best known as the villain in Casino Royale, Mikkelsen mixes erudition with homicidal menace very well indeed, particularly in an early scene when Laurence Fishburne's FBI chief comes calling unexpectedly.

Journalist Freddie gets close to Hannibal

Gillian Anderson will also be featuring later as Dr Bedelia Du Maurier, Lecter's psychotherapist (could be dangerous job to have). In the States this is being seen as the former X Files' star's big TV comeback, whereas everyone in Britain knows she been moonlighting as Victorian ladies in BBC productions Bleak House, The Crimson Petal and the White and Great Expectations.

She can also be seen in this week's The Fall on BBC2 as a detective hunting a serial killer in Belfast, a less lurid but more chilling drama than Hannibal.

Lecter is using Graham's 'pure empathy'

And the award for best-dressed serial killer goes to…

Anyway, the Grand Guignol continues this week in episode two with the discovery that Hobbs has spawned a copycat killer, a mass woodland grave is found containing people that were buried alive, and a journalist hunting a scoop is lured into Lecter's therapy room.

The big twist will come, of course, when Graham finally works out that Lecter is observing and learning from the FBI man's 'pure empathy' with mass murderers such as himself. In the meantime, watching Hannibal toy with Graham should be interesting.

Hannibal is over the top, and the attempt at dark humour (each episode is named after a course on a French menu) is not as biting, so to speak, as the satire in Dexter, for instance. But the show is getting good reviews in the States, and the superior writing and acting seem set to have patrons coming back for more helpings.

Cast: Hugh Dancy Special Agent Will Graham, Mads Mikkelsen Dr Hannibal Lecter, Caroline Dhavernas Dr Alana Bloom, Hettienne Park Special Agent Beverly Katz, Laurence Fishburne Special Agent-in-Charge Jack Crawford, Lara Jean Chorostecki Fredricka 'Freddie' Lounds,  Scott Thompson Jimmy Price,  Aaron Abrams Brian Zeller,  Kacey Rohl Abigail Hobbs, Gina Torres Phyllis 'Bella' Crawford,  Ellen Greene Mrs Komeda, Raúl Esparza Dr Frederick Chilton, Gillian Anderson Dr Bedelia Du Maurier

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The Fall, BBC2, with Gillian Anderson, Jamie Dornan PREVIEW

Hunting the hunter – Gillian Anderson as DSI Gibson. Pics: BBC

Rating: ★★★★½

BBC2: Monday, 13 May, 9pm

Story: When a murder in Belfast remains unsolved, DSI Stella Gibson is brought in from the London Metropolitan Police to review the case. She soon suspects that the killing is related to another murder.

GILLIAN ANDERSON stars alongside relative newcomer Jamie Dornan in this complex and dark serial killer drama, set in Belfast.

While the fiendishly brilliant serial murderer has become a cop show cliche since The Silence of the Lambs, The Fall is a far more intriguing portrait of a lone killer operating under the guise of your normal family man.

Unfolding with visual flair (directed by Jakob Verbruggen) and with multi-layered characters written by Allan Cubitt (one of the Prime Suspect writers), this will fill the Monday night hole left by Broadchurch in the must-see TV stakes.

Stella wants to head the investigation

The Fall is not a whodunit
Not that The Fall is a whodunit like the David Tennant/Olivia Colman series. It is more a how-will-they-catch-him gripper.

DSI Stella Gibson is called in from the Met in London to review a Belfast murder inquiry that has stalled. The female victim is the daughter of a politician.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland has investigated many sectarian killings down the years, but the sexually motivated murder is a crime they have little experience of. It is not long before Gibson suggests the killing may be linked to an earlier crime in which a woman's bound body was found in her wardrobe.

Paul Spector – daddy and stalker

Family man Paul and his wife, Sally-Ann

The audience knows more than the characters in this drama, because we can see Paul Spector going about his daily routine as a grief counsellor, daddy, stalker and predator. As he talks through the grief of one bereaved couple in his office, he sits drawing nude sketches of the mother before him.

Outside of work he has in his sights a young female solicitor, a brunette whom we soon realise fits a type he is obsessed with, and he burgles her home, arranging her underwear on her bed for when she returns.

More chilling are the scenes of him at home, father to his children and husband to his wife, who's a nurse. The monster hiding behind a mask.

• The BBC has a great 12-minute film about the making of The Fall

The Fall vs Hannibal
Gibson, whom Gillian Anderson plays as an understated but formidable personality, starts to ruffle the local force with her theory that a sexual predator is at work. She puts herself forward to head the Task Force to hunt the hunter.

Solicitor Sarah is stalked

The story is plausible and down-to-earth, and doesn't rely on mad plot twists to keep us engaged. And Dornan, the former Calvin Klein model perhaps best known as the sheriff from the fantasy series Once Upon a Time, is by turns warm, cold and intense as the devious, narcissistic, stalking, peeping killer.

The opening episode (of five) ends on a chilling note that will have viewers on the edge of their seats for more.

Incidentally, Gillian Anderson, who since her cult stardom in The X Files in the 1990s has been something of a BBC costume star in recent years (Bleak House, The Crimson Petal and the White, Great Expectations), can currently also be seen in Hannibal over on Sky Living. But while the Hannibal Lector show is full of gore and outlandishly twisted murders, The Fall is nearer the truth and a far more engrossing portrayal of a killer among us.

Cast: Gillian Anderson Stella Gibson, Jamie Dornan Paul Spector, Archie Panjabi Tanya Reed Smith, Bronagh Waugh Sally-Ann Spector, John Lynch Jim Burns, Niamh McGrady Danielle Ferrington, Laura Donnelly Sarah Kay, Frank McCusker Garrett Brink, Simon Delaney Jerry McElroy, Siobhan McSweeney Mary McCurdy, Gerard Jordan Brian Stone, Michael McElhatton Rob Breedlove, Ben Peel James Olson, Karen Hassen Annie Brawley, Lisa Hogg Marion Kay, Emmett Scanlan Glen Martin, Aisling Francios Katie

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Justified series 4, 5 USA with Timothy Olyphant PREVIEW

Timothy Olyphant looks ahead to Justified's new series. Pics: 5USA

Rating: ★★★★½ 

5USA: starts Wednesday, 8 May, 10pm 

Story: Raylan tries to earn a little extra cash by doing a side job for an old flame; namely, locating a murder suspect for her – a simple job gets very complicated for deputy US marshal. 

AMID a lot of dross cop procedurals on TV right now there are a couple of absolute gems tucked away, and Justified is one of them.

Now back on 5USA for his fourth season, the coolest lawman around, Deputy Marshal Raylan Givens, returns with a cracking opening episode that suggests the series will live up to previous levels of mayhem and badassery.

The cowboy-hat wearing, quick-on-the-trigger Raylan – played as ever with panache by Timothy Olyphant (ironic that a slick dude should be played by someone called Timothy) – gets a call from an old flame. Sharon, a bounty hunter, asks Raylan to keep an eye out for a murder suspect she is pursuing. There's three grand in it for him.

Raylan and Constable Sweeney held at gunpoint

Raylan gets his man, then loses him
Raylan, who doesn't live in luxury, could use the money. No sooner does the episode get into its stride than he is in a Mexican stand-off with the fugitive who is sitting in his car – which Raylan resolves in brilliant style. However, being a touch arrogant, he then loses his man and finds himself in a touch of serious bother.

It's an enjoyable reacquaintance with the series, added to by the introduction of Patton Oswalt as the newly installed local constable, puffed-up and self-important Bob Sweeney. Much fun should flow from this new character.

Having dispatched the vile Quarles in the last series – and a trademark of Justified is its superb evildoers – it looks as though a different kind of series-long mystery will drive the drama this time.

Raylan looking down another gun barrel

Justified's season four mystery
The opener begins with a flashback to 1983 when a man plummets to the ground after his parachute lets him down. This could be connected to a confidential diplomatic bag and driver's licence found in the wall of the home of Raylan's villainous and now imprisoned father, Arlo.

The licence has the name Waldo Truth on it. When Raylan visits his father in prison, Arlo denies knowing anything about it, but warns his son off anyway. Another inmate knows what they were talking about, and when he puts pressure on Arlo, the old man stabs him to death. Later it will emerge that the bag could help in the arrest of a major mafioso.

Murder on the Home Front, ITV, with Patrick Kennedy, Tamzin Merchant PREVIEW

Tamzin Merchant and Patrick Kennedy in Murder on the Home Front. Pics: ITV

Rating: ★★★

ITV: starts Thursday, 9 May, 9pm

Story: When young women are found murdered, DI Freddy Wilkins believes the obvious suspect is the vulnerable loner, Wilfred Ziegler as a result of the swastikas carved on the victims’ tongues. But Dr Lennox Collins, a brilliant Home Office Pathologist and Molly Cooper, his young secretary, have their doubts…

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be. It's now eating our TVs alive. It's everywhere with its musty old suits, foggy streets and vintage cars.

Forget Downton Abbey and Call the Midwife for a moment. The crime genre alone has single-handedly unleashed 16 or so costume mysteries in the last six months (see the list below) – with more to come.

Unfazed – Molly (Tamzin Merchant)

Why? A rose-tinted belief that times were hard but better, perhaps. Also, many viewers just love looking at the old bangers and funny fashions (never mind the quality of the drama). And crimes committed in the past seem somehow sanitised and safer for primetime viewing.

Based on the memoirs of Molly Lefebure
That's certainly what's happened with Murder on the Home Front, a potentially fascinating true story turned into a bit of jolly entertainment.

It's based – very loosely – on the memoirs of Molly Lefebure. During the London Blitz, she became secretary to Home Office pathologist Keith Simpson, who did a lot of pioneering forensic work.

Simpson later worked on the cases of several notorious killers, from acid bath murderer John George Haigh to Ronnie Kray. The Blitz is also an intriguing period owing to the chaos that acted as cover for criminals and murderers.

• Recent costume coppers and spies: Endeavour, Father Brown, Inspector George Gently, WPC 56, The Lady Vanishes, Foyle's War, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Spies of Warsaw, Vegas, Restless, Ripper Street, Miss Marple, Poirot, Corleone, Boardwalk Empire – and coming soon: The Suspicions of Mr Whicher 2, Quirke

In Murder on the Home Front, Simpson becomes Lennox Collins, played by Patrick Kennedy (Boardwalk Empire), and Molly Lefebure becomes Molly Cooper, with Tamzin Merchant (Jane Eyre) in the role. They meet during the war when Molly is a local newspaper journalist and Collins is in need of a secretary.

Molly is feisty and unfazed by dismembered corpses, and Collins is a nerdy, witty guy. The tone is carefree and light-hearted throughout. When Molly first turns up for work, forensic photographer Issy, equally as feisty and jolly as Molly, tells her, 'Bit of advice. Don't wear anything you cherish to work.' She looks around the mortuary – 'Blood, innards, and the dreaded brains.'

The pathologist and Molly at another crime scene

Collins is called to the murder of a woman in Kennington. He stuns the detective in charge, DI Wilkins, by insisting at this and ensuing crime scenes that the locus is preserved while he sifts for evidence. During the mayhem of the Blitz, Collins's approach not only goes against previous practice but also seems eccentric to the plod.

Swastika carved on victims' tongues
The victim has a swastika carved on her tongue, as does a second found in a park. Which leads the police to suspect that loner  Wilfred Ziegler, who found the first corpse, must be the culprit based on his German name.

Collins is after harder evidence and focuses on other suspects, particularly a nasty dance hall owner. But not only is he trying to modernise forensic practice, he also faces opposition from the government and Professor Stephens (Jame Fleet), who represents the old guard of forensics. They both want a quick conviction to preserve morale by pinning it on a Nazi serial killer.

Ballroom blitz – Collins investigates

Nostalgia hounds will adore the old dance hall (filmed at the Rivoli Ballrooms in Brockley), the wireless broadcasts and big band music. But the characters are thin and the desperation to be light-hearted grates.

ITV describe the two-parter as 'blackly comic and hugely entertaining' despite its 'dark themes'. Which kind of misses the point in a story about a guy who cuts up corpses and investigates depraved murderers, but the dance hall scenes do look lovely.

• For an insight into the real and remarkable Molly Lefebure, who died earlier this year, her grandson has put together this fascinating online portrait

Cast: Patrick Kennedy Lennox Collins, Tamzin Merchant Molly Cooper, James Fleet Professor Henry Stephens, David Sturzaker DI Freddy Wilkins, Emerald Fennell Issy Quennell,
Richard Bremmer Charlie Maxton, Iain McKee DS Brady, Ryan Gage Danny Hastings, John Bowe Ronald Terry, Patrick Knowles Pawel Rosanski, Angus Wright Carver, .John Heffernan Wilfred Zeigler, Jake Curran Norman Becket, Daniel Rabin Granger

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Life of Crime, ITV, with Hayley Atwell PREVIEW

Cop of ages – Hayley Atwell as Denise Wood. Pics: ITV

Rating: ★★★½ 

ITV: starts Friday, 10 May, 9pm 

Story: It’s 1985 and Denise is in her early twenties, starting life as an idealistic WPC for the Met Police. Though a rookie cop, she becomes involved in the case of a murdered young woman, killed after a night at a club. It is a case that will dominate Denise's career over three decades.

Where recent dramas Broadchurch and Mayday were ensemble pieces, Life of Crime is resolutely the Hayley Atwell show.

Her character, Denise Woods, ages across three decades as she rises through the ranks of the London Met, remaining dangerously obsessed with arresting the man who raped and murdered a young woman during her early days as a constable.

And the actress – star of Captain America and recent TV dramas Falcón and Restless – carries off the transformation and crises pretty well. The biggest problem Life of Crime has is trying to squeeze three decades into three hours of TV.

Denise clashes with her senior officer, played by Con O'Neill
Denise starts out as an idealistic WPC in her 20s, arriving as a probationer in Brixton, confronted by leering and condescension of male colleagues and bosses. While being treated in hospital for a knock, Denise meets a teenager, Amy, who later turns up dead in an alley behind a nightclub.

New face – Denise with Ray and Ferguson

The rookie disagrees with her ogre of a boss, DCI Ferguson, that Amy's dad – who earlier dragged her from the nightclub – is her killer. Denise suspects a man she saw skulking round the hospital ward as being Amy's attacker. He turns out to be the nightclub's doorman, Mike Holland.

Denise has moral and practical support from handsome Sergeant Ray Deans in her bid to get evidence on Holland. But Ferguson, who tells Denise she's nothing more than a 'Doris' who is meant to answer phones and make tea, suspends her for continual interference. Con O'Neill is very believable as the unpleasant, raging Ferguson.

The lurch from rookie to dirty cop doesn't work
The first half of the opening episode is engrossing, with Hayley Atwell nailing the role of no-nonsense Denise, a newbie ignoring the male hostility to do the job she's set on. The mismanaged murder inquiry is also all too convincing, as is Denise's frustration with it. Also, her personal stake in Amy's case is believable and gives the drama some heart.

It is during the Brixton riots – very cheaply recreated – that the story stretches credibility, with Denise strolling nonchalantly through burning streets before deciding to take matters into her own hands to nail Holland. Her career is set to take off, but she's in for a shock in episode two…

Her lurch into dirty cop mode from a novice constable is perhaps a sympton of the need to compress a lot of story into three hours, but it dents the character's plausibility.

Scott & Bailey latest, new BBC series By Any Means, Mr Whicher

Suranne Jones as Rachel Bailey and Nicola Walker as Helen

• Scott & Bailey returns to the house of horrors that featured in episode one during this Wednesday's story (1 May, ITV, 9pm). We'll see Nicola Walker coming back as Helen Bartlett, the woman traumatised by the abuse she suffered three decades ago at the hands of her creepy parents. However, it seems that life with her dad, the psychopath Joe (George Costigan, who was pretty disturbing in the role), were far more macabre than we realised. Joe appeared to be a bed-bound, frail old guy in the series opener, but then it turned out, of course, that he had murdered his wife and abused his children. Now it appears there are further horrific discoveries at the house – and Helen may know more about what occurred there. It's one of the darkest stories ever featured on the hit series. Nicola Walker says of Helen, 'She has created a character to be at work and that has been successful. But then when someone brings Peveril Street back into her consciousness again, it’s like she goes straight back there. I think she has some form of post-traumatic stress disorder. I’ve never played a character who is so full of shame. It’s an interesting thing to play because it’s an absolutely internal emotion. She’s full of apology. At times she barely raises her eyes to look someone in the eye.' Watch the Scott & Bailey trailer

• Discuss all these new shows on CrimeTimePreview's new Forum •

• The Beeb has started filming By Any Means in Birmingham, a new cop from a team of writers led by Tony Jordan, whose credits include Hustle and Life on Mars. This is about a clandestine police team who attempt to play the criminals at their own game, and tread a fine line with the law. It stars Warren Brown (Luther, Good Cop), Shelley Conn (Mistresses, Marchlands) and Andrew Lee Potts (Primeval, Ideal) and Gina McKee (The Borgias, In The Loop).

Paddy Considine and Olivia Colman in The Suspicion's of Mr Whicher II

 • Look out for ITV's forthcoming The Suspicions of Mr Whicher II, again starring Paddy Considine as the pioneering Victorian detective. The sequel goes beyond Kate Summerscale's engrossing non-fiction book this time, featuring Olivia Colman – fresh from the brilliant success of Broadchurch – as Susan Spencer, who employs Whicher as a private inquiry agent to investigate the murder of her neice, 16-year-old Mary. Paddy says, 'When we left Whicher at the end of the first drama he’d failed to prove his case that the little boy had been murdered by his 16-year-old sister, Constance. She’d been acquitted and having failed to secure a conviction he was booted out of the force and basically had a nervous breakdown. Now, when we pick up his story again he’s supposedly putting the case and his life in the force behind him. He’s taken up walking and gardening instead. But the audience knows before he does that as much as he tries to give the life up, it won't give him up because, basically he’s a detective to his bones. He has no chance when a woman in search of her lost niece appeals to him for help. He just can’t help but get involved.'

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