Prime Suspect Reviews

Who would have imagined that the Brits would produce a show that changed the entire format of a police procedural? One thinks of British TV as a continuous source of Masterpiece Theater’s handsome literary adaptations. Tasteful, might even be a better word for it. Of course, as an American my perception is more than likely warped given that much of British TV wasn’t shown over here, or it was hard to find, buried away in some distant cable channel.

But I’m digressing away from the main point. Prime Suspect is a hell of a show. Police dramas like Homicide: Life on the Street, NYPD Blue, and the various outsets of Law & Order owe a tremendous debt to this series. These prodigal children wouldn’t have a roadmap to follow if it wasn’t for this first entry in the six volume series, which began in 1991 and ended in 2006.

This first volume, simply titled Prime Suspect, follows the newly appointed Jane Tennison as she takes over the homicide division and tries to solve a murder. As the first woman to run the department and head up an investigation of this magnitude, she encounters sexism at every turn. Tennison’s steely resolve and hard-outer shell eventually began to consume her, both at the job and in her private life, as she submerges her femininity to try and demand the respect she should be entitled to from her male peers and subordinates.

It’s gritty, well-written, and supremely well-acted show. Helen Mirren’s Tennison is a compulsively watchable character. We root for her to succeed in front of these hostile odds. She’s not always likable, and as the series progresses some of her more questionable traits and decisions become major problems, but she feels like a complete person. As flawed, damaged, and interesting as that sounds, Mirren makes it even more intriguing. When one looks at Mirren’s career achievements, her work on this series must be placed near the very top of the list, alongside her performances in Gosford Park, The Queen, Elizabeth, I, and The Madness of King George.

The only true flaw I can find with this first season of Prime Suspect is how consistently it replays some of the same story beats. There’s only one true suspect, we don’t spend much time with the others, and the series frequently has him in-and-out of jail, going out on bail/freed for lack of evidence, new evidence comes out to implicate him, repeat. It gets a little monotonous by the third go-around, but it’s highly forgivable a flaw. The rest of the series is so solidly constructed and executed, the supporting players is perfectly in-tuned with the material, and Mirren’s guiding performance so masterful, that it still feels imminently satisfying once the climatic events reveal themselves and the story reaches its inevitable conclusion.

smoking causes heart attacks Irony.
Good acting.