London Kills

The first couple of episodes aren't so great, but if you stick with it, the story will pull you in. I liked the diverse cast and the unexpected twists. Yes, some parts of the plot were pretty unbelievable and the budget must have been low because you really only see the four police officers in what's supposed to be a police station, but for all that, I enjoyed the series. Season 2 was much better than Season 1, so stick with it. If you like taught, fast moving police procedurals, you'll like London Kills.

London Kills struggled to get into its stride during season one, despite a solid underlying premise. The main characters on the team are introduced as is the story arc regarding the disappearance of DI Bradford's wife, Sarah. The problem lies in the weakness of the episodic cases, mostly riddled with holes and magic leaps, whilst the missing wife story plays second fiddle.

Season two is a complete turnaround rising from mediocre to quite good. The stories are generally coherent and a much greater emphasis is placed on the Sarah plotline making each individual episode and the season as a whole feel more consistent and engaging.

A decent cast performed well, despite poorly written dialogue in season one. Season two made the relationships more believable with both Sharon Small and Hugo Speer benefitting from their characters' being more relatable with less random caricature disagreements.

The improvement in season two bodes well for three which I am gleefully anticipating.

It's watchable. Considering the base material, the acting is OK. But the plot is full of holes, the dialogue is corny and predictable, and the intrigue and character psychology are below soap-standard mushy. Oh, and it's directed like a soap, too. The UK have a strong tradition of producing quality police procedurals, usually with strong plots and characters: Prime suspect, GBH, Luther, LIne of Duty, Bodyguard, and the list goes on... Unfortunately, this is not one of these. I guess, aside from the expensive cars (a DI drives an executive merc that is usually marketed to successful senior executives and entrepreneurs!) they didn't have much money to shoot this one and it shows a bit as well. So this sums it all up: not much script, not much money, not much talent, yielding very average entertainment. They should save resources and not make a second series: no one will lose any sleep not knowing who killed the DI's wife. Just saw the end of series 2: it's even worse than I originally thought. I hope they don't make series 3.

While I did enjoy watching London Kills, and watched all 4 series, if I stop and think about it there are all kinds of questions, curios and downright weirdness.

Obviously low budget, as in the first 3 series we never see anyone in the police station but the main 4 or 5 on this murder squad. Once we get to series 4 extras dressed as cops walk up and down the halls in a rebuttal of many reviewers' comments that there appear to be no other employees in this station. But we see the same shots of the same cops walking down the hall over and over again.

I could not believe that in nearly every episode of the first 3 series the same bus #15 was seen from behind and the same white van turned left in the same exterior establishing shot - again and again and again. Came to pass that I found myself waiting for bus #15 and its accompanying white van each episode and I was not let down. Same for the green bridge with "Flash" graffitied across it in white paint. It became a very familiar sight. "Ah! There it is!" I'd say each time the same view of it appeared, like I was keeping score. And other similar exterior shots reused again and again.

Acorn TV is an American company owned by AMC, so no doubt it is making sure their US audience gets plenty of notice that this is a British show, although the name should be enough of a clue. I'm not complaining; I'm an Anglophile in Canada and happy to see Tower Bridge, boats on the Thames and various tourist attractions around the city continuously, one after the other, again and again.

Do suspects in the UK not ask for a solicitor when being questioned? Are police interviews never recorded? They appear to be in every other Brit copy show (and I've watched many). Do London police always arrest everyone even remotely close to a crime and ask questions later? Are all UK cops psychic and know things they could not possibly know (had it not been written in the script?)

There were some nice twists in some of the episodes, things that kept me watching, but some head-scratchers too, like how the heck could they possibly know that?

People who weren't guilty seemed to be forever confessing to the crime to cover up for someone else, while the guilty party was often, of course, the one you would least expect. I don't know if these cops were driving their own cars or what, but does the police service provide Mercedes and Audis? I don't know, if I ask too many questions I might hurt myself. There are many. However, I liked it enough to watch all 4 series (20 episodes in total) so it wasn't all bad.

My pet peeve though is that anyone ever interviewed NEVER has a, solicitor present That is very unrealistic.