rgclosson-568-232001

American cop procedural focus on the glitz action bombast. That's why I usually prefer Brit cop shows for interesting plots. They understate the gore but often have too intricate plots that risk losing the audience without periodic explanations. Not a capital crime but annoying. This one has 1) detectives following emotional hunches and leads instead of procedure, 2) shoddy interview techniques including badgering and leading the interviewees, 3) acting surprised or indignant when the slick defense attorney calls them on it. There are few Aha! Moments for the viewer because we're kept current at every step. No denouement near the end to clear things up.

I'm streaming Season 1 in order and this is my first review. There are some consistencies here between episodes 1-4. The storylines are reduced to "Just the facts ma'am," as Sgt Joe Friday used to say. They take a complicated case and reduce it down to a series of clips of evidence revelations, suspect interviews, field actions, witness confrontations. The result is it seems all to fit within a day, two at the max. So far, no tedious shoe leather work or stakeouts, none of the boring but essential police work we've come to expect. Episodes are like the Cliff Notes of the real stories.

Consistency #2. It's never who you think it will be. The stories are so filled with characters - maybe like real life, maybe excessive - that provide a large group of peripheral entanglements. The detectives winnow their way through evidence and suspect accounts and witness accounts and CCTV and forensic reports to give the viewers an ongoing account of the current case status as it evolves. The trail is invariably tangled but our main protagonists muddle through with police experience, and intuition, and dumb luck. And just when the viewer thinks we know the culprit, a revelation takes us in a different direction.

Consistency #3. Those interviews down at the station are rough! The officers get away with a lot more snark and leading questions and badgering than would hold up in the States. And a lot more, "How do you explain THAT?" (bit of incriminating evidence) than any competent attorney would allow. The answer should always be, "It's your job, not mine, to explain the evidence!" BTW - the solicitors seem to be show pieces without any role other than to suggest the interviewees have counsel present. Like Vanna White turning letters only with less action and no letters. Occasionally the barrister will jot a note to show life.

Consistency #4. You cannot escape the long arm of the law. We always get our man or woman. No sense in lying to us or withholding evidence or bits of the story. We'll get you, no matter what. We usually know the answers to our questions and are just trying to catch you in a lie.

Consistency #5. There is no wrap up. No denouement to summarize and clarify for viewers at the end. If you fell asleep for that critical bit, go back and rewatch it. Fade to credits and onto the next episode.

It has a sense of superficiality. That might be a directorial artistic choice. The plot marches along at a rapid pace of inevitability. One final quibble: I'm a yank who fears missing a critical piece due to slang or my own stupidity, so I watch with subtitles. They are slightly delayed from the spoken dialog, which is distracting.

If I wanted to watch a self-important cop who's always smarter than all coworkers, who berates them for being dull tools (which they're not), who eschews good police protocols in favor of hunches that are never wrong, who always notices an inconspicuous clue that turns out to be important in spite of forensics covering the crime scene, who rarely shares a thought process with the team and leaves them hanging on his every word, and who thinks that bluster substitutes for caution, I could watch "Vera." Van der Valk is the latest male version of Vera, minus calling people "pet"and "dear." The stories are complex with intertwined subplots and many characters designed to confuse viewers and convince us that Smiley is a taciturn genius. If you like that sort of thing, watch this series.