Hidden *spoilers*

With Walter Bernstein of Watergate fame as one of the creative team behind this, you wouldn't be expecting a cosy caper, and the first episode delivered pretty much what you'd think: violence, corruption, sex and drugs, which translate, of-course, into 'gritty, dark, urban thriller'.  The setting is a fictional, contemporary Britain, where the coalition government is crumbling amid schisms and allegations, while on the streets, protests at austerity measures turn into riots.  Did I say 'fictional'?

Philip Glenister is Harry Venn, classic staple of political/noir thrillers, the slightly seedy solicitor with dodgy connections and a murky past.  With a lippy, casual office junior, he's a PI gumshoe in all but name.  There's a mysterious woman representing a shady client who needs his help.  It goes without saying he'd rather sleep with her - she even looks a little like Lauren Bacall.  Then there's the link with his supposedly murdered brother, his own criminal past and his wayward son.  This has four leisurely hours to unravel, but the writing so far is snappy enough and thankfully it's not quite as in love with itself as was 'The Shadow Line'.

Thekla Reuten is the obligatory sex bomb - in the noir world, you understand - Gina Hawkes.  Why are they always foreign?  Would British automatically mean Maureen from Skegness?  Apologies to Maureens from Skegness, many of whom may be shoe-ins for femmes fatales at auditions, I grant you.  Anna Chancellor as a political shaker is so constantly onscreen these days playing the savvy, world-weary operator that she must have been asked to stand for Parliament by now.


As usual, the details don't bear too much scrutiny.  Would Harry really be left alone with a prisoner and able to physically intimidate him?  Is he really so irresistible to women that his dumped girlfriend and his ex-wife offer themselves up?  (You know his leading lady can't be more than three episodes behind them....)  Fans of Mr G would say yes, but his character so far offers little to add to his looks.  And before anyone can think 'Gene Hunt' let alone talk about firing up the Quattro, here's Harry having flashbacks of being the victim of a Gene-like interview, involving blood and bruises.  The bad old days aren't so good, in this case, after all. 

So far, then, so could-go-either-way.  Since the end of last night's episode involved an explosion aimed at our (anti?) hero, we're hoping the only way is up.