Prime Suspect: The Final Act

Having just finished watching all 7 chapters on DVD I must say this is the best drama of any kind I have seen. Overall it was so good I will miss watching it ! I have seen a great deal of Dame Helen Mirren's work and have enjoyed and marveled at her versatility and choice of roles. In the Prime Suspect character of Jane Tennison she has out done herself in my humble opinion. The stories touch on so many realms of police drama and were excellent stories in themselves. What I enjoyed most was the complexity of the character of Jane Tennison throughout the entire series. She was brilliant yet flawed, focused yet distracted, driven yet not particularly ambitious. She had a job to do and she did it very well despite roadblocks put up at every turn within the department, society or political higher ups. Unlike many a series in the US, the Final Act was I thought a great finish to a great series. Yes I would love to know where retirement led her. It is hard to see Jane Tennison spending her final years relaxing on the beach somewhere. It did though answer questions from earlier on and showed what a great toll her drive and dedication took on her personal life. I know some have said the conclusion did not live up to the standards of some of the earlier chapters. I have to disagree. I thought the story line itself was good and a very fitting retirement for an extraordinary character who could only have been played by Helen Mirren. For anyone who watched the Soprano's for so long to see how they chose to end it they will understand why I thought Prime Suspect was excellent not just chapters 1-6 but 1-7 ! Too bad Hollywood can't come up with something as original and gritty as Prime Suspect and follow it through instead of just doing knock offs of other programs ! The closest we have come was the 5 seasons of The Wire and it was a job well done for American TV. No single character will ever touch Jane Tennison though ! Although without the outstanding cast, writers,producers and everyone else involved It wouldn't have been the same either. Congratulations to one and all for a job very well done !

This is a way for Tennison, Mirren, Granada, and Prime Suspect to bow out gracefully. This is a classy production nearly four hours long and some have suggested the actual crime story is secondary to the personal portrait. Perhaps, perhaps not - but when you're ushering out an icon like this series you have to give time to that too.

Hats off to Tom Bell for his final appearance in the series. He was magnificent from day one, episode one, and he was exceptionally excellent here as well.

A word about the series as a whole: Dick Wolf didn't write it. This is no random shuffle, no one dimensional drama. It's thick and it's gutsy and everything is in three stark dimensions and ultimately it's not even crime drama either: it's very much social commentary. People don't work this hard and this long at something only to have a forty five minute L&O filler.

The first episode introduced the characters - and how they do it is something the hacks in Hollywood should bloody well study. 2 is about racism. 3 is about child molestation. 4 is about motherhood, corruption, and a return to 1. 5 is about gangs. 6 is about genocide. 7 is about... ?? Watch it and see.

Another word about the series: no sooner had the final part of The Final Act been shown than ITV came out with a beautiful boxed set. 10 DVDs all told with commentary and interviews on the last of them. Personally I find it a bit annoying after spending 70 quid to be reminded on each disc that I wouldn't steal a car so I wouldn't steal a DVD. But it's a beautiful set and a no-brainer as for purchase.

And Taylor's a lucky man, hitched as he is with a goddess.

Det. Supt. Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren) is weeks from retirement, worn-down, and alcoholic. 14 year old Sallie Sturdy goes missing. Principal's daughter Penny Philips is her best friend. Sallie's father is faced with suspicion and then her body is found. She was pregnant. Tennison's father is in the hospital "on the way out" with cancer and she is pushed to go to AA where she runs into Bill Otley.

This is a great final act for a great character played by a great actress. Tennison is beset with personal problems that are well earned. Bill Otley returns to tie up his relationship with her. It's a short reunion but a very powerful one due to their history. He's also given a terrific death. Another great relationship is Mirren with young Laura Greenwood who plays Penny. She is almost like a daughter that Tennison never had after her abortion. The final scene is an emotionally devastating conclusion to Tennison's career. Greenwood is incredible in the face of the legend next to her. The second part does have a slow spot in the middle and the last section does rush a little to the finish. However, the final interrogation cannot have ended the franchise any better.

The first three 'Prime Suspect' series were absolutely brilliant. 'Prime Suspect IV' changed the format from two episodes compromising of one case for each of the previous three series to three different cases and actually did it very well.

After changing the formula with 'Prime Suspect IV' with three episodes and three separate cases, the fifth to seventh series returned to the original two episodes revolving around one case (to me the format that worked more, not that the change of format in 'Prime Suspect IV' didn't work well but with the complexities and rich development of the stories in the other series the having them as two parters was necessary and allowed more development of the stories and characters).

'Prime Suspect' bows out with 'The Final Act' and what a final act it is. 'Prime Suspect' deserved to go out with a bang, and it does, and it compares very favourably with the previous series.

Every single one of the previous 'Prime Suspect' series were incredibly well made. 'Prime Suspect VII: The Final Act' is not excepted. It is stylishly and cleverly filmed, with slick editing and atmospheric lighting, and there is a consistently wonderful atmosphere throughout. It is very gritty, dark and effectively claustrophobic. It is very hard to forget the music score too, plus mood-wise it's one of the more action and atmosphere-enhancing music scores of all the 'Prime Suspect' series along with 'The Last Witness'.

Once again the writing is of superb calibre, some of the best there is of any mystery/detective drama, being superbly constructed and intelligent, plus it is hard to not be impressed by the cunning subtlety of the conflicts.

Story-telling is very compelling and twisty, with an atmosphere that is gritty and harrowing but also intricate and honest. It is a complex story that keeps one guessing right up to the end while also being easy to follow. Plus the suspense of a lot of it is nerve-shredding. The deliberate pacing did not harm it at all, in fact it was executed incredibly well and was necessary considering the amount going on. There is an ever so slight lull in the middle pace-wise, but nowhere near enough to harm the story.

The final act in particular is nail-biting and heart-wrenching, the whole of 'The Final Act' is worth it for the chemistry between Tennison and Laura Greenwood's character and the climactic interrogation alone.

Jane Tennison continues to be an interesting character, the character and the depiction of the police force was very ahead of the time back in the 90s and holds much fascination now even if not so novel. There is the sense too that the character has evolved significantly, a feeling that one didn't get before.

Helen Mirren's performance is as ever of sheer magnificence and she gets particularly exceptional support from Tom Bell (last seen in 'Prime Suspect III') and Laura Greenwood. Having seen his one in a lifetime performance in 'Brassed Off', Stephen Tompkinson excels at playing conflicted, or actually more in this case borderline creepy, characters (although he's better known for other things that are the opposite of that) and he goes for it.

All in all, a more than satisfying send-off, couldn't be better. By the end my nails were sore from all the biting and there were tears running down my face, may sound hyperbolic but 'The Final Act' had that effect on me. 10/10 Bethany Cox

The original 'Prime Suspect', an unusually tough police procedural thriller, was a landmark in early 1990s television, immediately making other hits series like 'Inspector Morse' appear tired and out-of-date. Since then, the series has retained some quality through its relatively infrequent outings, but still, the writing has not always been as good as in the first episode and in some cases has lapsed into the melodramatic cliché of the standard crime show. Gradually, I lost interest (I think about the fifth time that the whole direction of central character Jayne Tennyson's life was on the line if she didn't solve some murder in the face of the scepticism of her colleagues). But the series has always featured great acting from the incomparable Helen Mirren in that role, and in this final part she has arguably never been finer, there is some longer-term narrative development from the earlier episodes and Mirren exploits the character's growing history as the basis for a harrowing, wholly three-dimensional performance that almost seems out of place in a crime drama. Behind her performance, there's a nicely executed but less extraordinary tale of murder that could have come from any other cop show.

What's amazing about Mirren is how she truly inhabits the parts she plays: having recently seen her in Channel Four's 'Elizabeth', one can say the two series constitute a masterclass of televisual acting, ancient and modern. The series may be done; but the prime of Helen Mirren is far from over.