We need say no more than that this is penned by Paul Abbott, who wrote 'Shameless', for it to be clear that the title is ironic. It's a comedy drama about a police team, and episode one throws caution to the wind and irreverence towards police, criminals, victims with learning difficulties, people with physical disabilities.... It has some funny moments, but at the moment is an uneasy, fairly queasy mix of serious storylines (prostitution, kidnapping, attempted murder) and the comedy of human selfishness and folly. We remember Abbott wringing laughs from a man with Tourettes Syndrome with discomfort... but then again, the 90s US sitcom 'Seinfeld' regularly induced guilty laughter at the extreme awfulness of its central characters.
This does have Abbott's verve, his knack for the unexpected and the sharp line, and a great cast, so at the very least it's a nice change of pace from cop procedurals or slapstick sitcoms, and it could turn out to be much more... though not, as the title theme suggests, 'Breaking Bad'.
Prepare to suspend disbelief. Emile Zola wrote 'Lark Rise to Candleford'. If you don't believe it, you'll have to forget that Zola wrote the novel that 'The Paradise' is based on, because Bill Gallagher wrote both and the similarities far outnumber the differences. Even the casts have names in common. We are sure that this wasn't given a Sunday scheduling because 'Lark Rise...' fans would get confused.
Now don't get us wrong, one half of us quite liked the story of Laura Timmins and co. as comforting Sunday night fayre, and this is shaping up nicely to be equally camp and clunking. Young Denise (Joanna Vanderham) fetches up from an erstwhile Lark Rise, arriving doe-eyed and clueless in a bigger, brighter version of Candleford's haberdashery store, which happens to be run by a handsome devil with dimples and a moustache which ought to twirl. She may be naive, but by golly she's a natural!
If you don't know what happens next, you need to stay in more. There's lots of frills, gossip, and snobbery, and so far no-one except Denise is better than they ought to be. Forget Zola, or you'll be in trouble. Think 'Lark Rise...' with a dash of 'Downton' and smidgens of what you've heard about the origins of Selfridges, Liberty, Whiteley's, Swan and Edgar and Fortnum. Can't see this winning Emmys, or winning a new audience for heaving corsets, but it adds a warm hazy glow to autumn evenings.
Great cast, bad characterisation, dull cliches, mad ending. With more subtlety in the script it could have made a decent enough children's teatime drama.
