McCallum - Tote schweigen nicht

As with some of the best films and series, I stumbled across this quite by accident. It was late, a storm was in full force outside and I was sitting comfortably on the sofa when I flicked past a channel that was just about to show one of the episodes. I intended merely to watch a couple of minutes while waiting for the commercials to be finished on another channel before switching back to some or other sitcom. About an hour and a half later I remembered my resolve and was so happy that I hadn't done that. Needless to say I made sure I saw all the other episodes.

John Hannah has been brilliant in almost everything I have seen him in and he does not let down here either. All other cast members do a stellar job too. My personal favourite (aside from John Hannah, of course) is Gerard Murphy.

The only negative side to this series are the limited amount of episodes. Only 8 with JH himself and an additional 1 with someone else. I would love to see McCallum back on the screens, though it would have to be with JH!

I love this series, my only complaint being the brevity of it. I would have liked to see more episodes with this fine ensemble cast, led by John Hannah. The opening credits with the beautiful aerial views of London are stunning. I was prompted to write this to correct what is misleading in the Trivia paragraph about this show. It most definitely is set in London and not my beloved Edinburgh.

The first couple of episodes were pretty good, but things went down hill from there. McCallum's personal life became the focus rather than being a background element. I wonder if they didn't change writers: the plots became implausible. The pacing was slow. They appear to have tried to stretch material that suited a one hr. show into 1.5 hrs. Midway through the second season we abandoned the show. My wife and I wouldn't recommend it. There is no way that this show deserves the high rating that it has on IMDB.

The series is centered on Forensic Pathologist Dr Iain McCallum (John Hannah) who is a Scot working in London. He works on a team that is suitably quirky and dysfunctional but is also a very tight knit group. He drives a motorcycle, tangles with authority and has a somewhat tumultuous relationship life with his live-in girlfriend Joanna (Suzanna Hamilton). The stories are centered on criminal cases investigated by the Forensics and Pathology team working with the police.

The strengths of the series include a solid cast and some very interesting characters, of particular note is John Hannah probably best known for playing Jonathan in The Mummy and its sequels. The series also make very good use of the London locations, focusing mostly on the more rundown and disreputable areas. The morgue/forensics laboratory is appropriately dark and dingy, far removed from the hi-tech antiseptic look of most American procedurals.

The weaknesses as I see them seem to have to do with focus or direction of the series; it seems at times to want to concentrate on the cases and at other times on the character development and unfortunately for the most part it doesn't adequately service either. For me the cases also rely far too heavily on coincidence to connect McCallum closely with them. Less of a problem are the more typical complaints seen in procedurals, McCallum is involved in a great many criminal investigations and the police with whom he works seem to be constantly one step behind our hero.

One minor quibble in that some of the incidental music does not appear to be original, some of it sounds distinctly like Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The series ran for nine episodes over two seasons

John Hannah was excellent & so are the rest of the cast. I love British shows. They are good clean shows with not a lot of vulgar language, etc. I definitely recommend watching this show. I only wish there were more seasons. Three seasons is not enough...