Black Work

For decades, the UK has produced so many high-class crime dramas, that it is impossible to "shoot without fail" all the time. Tastes develop, as well as circumstances, and viewers may move beyond the approaches and issues they used to like in Poirot or Morse, for example, or have begun to like "new age" in the form of Luther or Prey... Black Work is a kind of related mix, but worrying and grief overshadow other elements, including credibility, several male performers are too look-a-like, and the final 20 minutes or so add unnecessary sophistication.

True, Sheridan Smith as P.C. Jo Gillespie is catchy and the background realism is up there, but I am able to "blurt out" dozens of more interesting (mini)series I have seen in recent years. To me, Black Work is more a long film than series, and when you see all 3 episodes in a row, you could realise that many scenes and dialogues could have been more compact.

I am a fan of British suspense and crime thrillers. Catching up with offerings on Acorn network led me to this series. I am beginning to understand why PBS picks up on some things and leaves the rest.

There is no reason why this series should not have been better rated, except for Sheridan Smith's lead performance, which sucked the life out of it. The doll-faced musicals actress displays all the emotions from A to B, as one critic once said of a young Katherine Hepburn on Broadway. Her supporting players only make her inadequacy in the role more pronounced. Ms. Smith succeeded in making Douglas Henshall look hysterical by comparison. Geraldine James stood out, as always. And Matthew McNulty's enthusiastic performance as a smitten suitor crashes on Ms. Smith's wooden facade.

Another example of programming on Brit-export channels that makes me wonder whether they think we Americans don't know the difference between mediocre and quality productions.

This show didn't bother me like it seemed to bother others. :) It wasn't brutal (I can't watch brutal), it was interesting, and I thought the acting was fine across the board. I didn't love the lead character, but she was sympathetic. The kids were both good, and the boy was not rebellious, he was sweet, not sure why someone said that. There were a few jumps in the plot but I'd go back 10 seconds (great button on the Acorn app!) and get enough info. I watch a lot of UK cop/detective shows and this fit well within what I like.

Not wanting to repeat what others have already identified, all I want to say is that whoever is the police liaison for procedure should get a health size nine in the spuds. I have waited, for years, for a police drama to be made with accurate procedure unfortunately this is not it. For all you none police out there who believe what you see police do in this and other so called police dramas..... you do not salute you're chief super or Chief Constable during a normal working day,, you do not GET PROMOTED to CID. We do not sneak up on suspects with sirens blaring, we do not run sneak up on suspects on foot and shout them to stop 100 metres away we do not arrive at a police station with lights and horns blaring.....God give me strength.

When Jo's husband is murdered, ostensibly while undercover, she starts digging into whatever was going in her husband's life - because she obviously didn't know anything about him.

And I must say...

Whoever wrote this has a very low opinion of Yorkshire Police...

They're all either dirty, inept, or just plain thick as a bag of extra strength sludge. All the cops go down the pub on the first or second day of the murder investigation for lord's sake!

The only one doing anything in this show is Jo, who by doing what her colleagues in the police force should do, actually finds stuff out about her lying sod of a husband. All while every other cop on the force does nothing at all.

The main downfall of this show is that, besides Jo, every other character is just too stupid and annoying to be real. From the useless Superintendent to the violent DS that goes mad on a suspect in an interview, everyone is a collection of clichés with a large helping of stupidity thrown in for good measure.

Example. At one point the mother of the dead guy yells her daughter in law for "not caring who murdered her husband", then in almost the next scene she's in, she yells at Jo for investigating her husband's death and "not caring about the kids".

Actually, the mother in law is a terrible character and I found myself hoping she would die.

I also managed to guess the murderer from the moment they appeared, most by casting choice alone.

Otherwise, could have been great, but the writing is too poor to have it be any good.