Prime Suspect 3

Everything everyone is saying about this one is true. One thing to add: it's a lot for a single sitting. It runs almost four hours. People couldn't have had an option when it was transmitted on telly - they had to wait for the subsequent episodes - but when you rent or purchase it now you can't be forced into that option - and you'll find it nigh on impossible to break things off at the hour or two hour mark - it's just too good as everyone says.

Perhaps the best news is that Lynda La Plante is back. Episode two wasn't bad - but it wasn't La Plante's writing and it didn't have her magical hand on it. This one does. It's as if she took all the stuff she found out worked in the first episode, concentrated it, and flung it back. Everything is deeper, grittier, gorier.

There are seven huge episodes in this opus, all told twenty two hours of viewing. So to single out any one episode and say it's 'best' is going to be difficult, but taking only the first three it's not hard to see which excel more than others, and this one has to rank right at the very top.

As good as crime fiction on film gets, whether theatrical or made-for-television. Lynda La Plante's writing is at a peak here, with sharp dialog, vividly drawn characters and narrative that captures and won't let go until the end. It's grim, seedy, violent and sad---a real slice of vice unit life and of those they interrogate or pursue. Helen Mirren, as Jane Tennison, has rightly received top honors for her work in the Prime Suspect series, but here she excels even herself. An incredibly detailed characterization you won't forget. But she's not alone when it comes to accolades. Every supporting member is terrific, and there are some future stars to see: Jonny Lee Miller, Peter Capaldi, Mark Strong, Ciarán Hinds, Danny Dyer, James Frain, the incredible David Thewlis! And let's not forget the great Tom Bell, as Tennison's nemesis Bill Otley. All of it brilliantly directed by David Drury. Absolutely essential viewing crime procedure aficionados and anyone else.

Set at the height of the AIDS epidemic, this adaptation of Lynda La Plante's story is a potent assessment of just how vulnerable people were horrifically exploited in London in the early 1990s. Taking up her new post with the vice squad "DCI Tennison" (Helen Mirren) is charged with looking into the tragic death (in a fire) of young boy who turns out to have been a high-class rent boy. The investigation soon broadens as she encounters "Vera" (a striking effort from Peter Capaldi), "Jackson" (David Thewlis) and Ciarán Hinds (the sinister, almost malevolent Parker-Jones) and exposes a corrupt network of sexploitation that involves young men/boys and an establishment all too willing to turn a blind eye - or, indeed, to actively participate. David Drury has taken a gritty, punchy script and turned it into a compelling drama that shines a light on not just the seedier side of the sex industry, but also on bullying and gender issues that resonate even more profoundly thirty years later. Mirren has made the role her own, her strength of character dealing with her own team - frequently disdainful, homophobic or just plain disinterested as well as with the wonderfully odious Hinds is enthralling. Thewlis is great as the thuggish enforcer and there are a couple of really uncomfortable-to-watch cameos from Jonny Lee Miller and James Frain as victims of these atrocious abuses of trust and power. I don't know that it is my favourite of these, but it is certainly the most plausible in terms of depicting the brutal, thoughtless and shameless treatment of susceptible young men.

DCI Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren) breaks up with her boyfriend Jake Hunter. He's married and an author of a serial killer book. She's starting a new job and finds old nemesis Sgt. Bill Otley (Tom Bell). They investigate an arson-murder involving underage rent-boys and a cross-dressing cabaret. Thuggish James Jackson (David Thewlis) is the prime suspect. Edward Parker-Jones (Ciarán Hinds) is the club owner. The clientele and police involvement threaten to be a scandal.

Helen Mirren is the lead. This show can never be bad with her driving the boat. This time Otley is back but he's somewhat domesticated. The vicious sexism is no longer there. The case is lascivious and dirty. This is solid TV police drama but nothing compared to series 1 part 1.

At first, we had a hard time understanding the accents, but by the second episode we caught up and enjoyed it a great deal. Then again, we were watching a home-taped VHS copy, so the sound was a little muted.

The acting and the writing were excellent.