REVIEW: Manhunt (S1 E1/3)

We’ve had Luther stripped over four nights on the BBC to kick-off the year (read our reviews here) and on Sky Atlantic, Escape To Dannemora is well worth a watch and has also been streamed in its entirety on Now TV. Now we have ITV’s big, New Year offering – and it’s a very different proposition to both of those aforementioned shows.

Manhunt is a three-part series (yes, stripped over the next three nights) and it’s a dramatisation of a harrowing, true crime story. A recent one. I have mixed feelings about these kinds of things. It’s been written by Ed Whitmore (who co-wrote another (very good) true crime dramatisation, Rillington Place), and stars Martin Clunes as DCI Colin Sutton, the man tasked with investigating the murder of Amélie Delagrange in 2000 in south London, and then subsequently,  Milly Dowler, Marsha McDonnell and Kate Sheedy. They were headline-grabbing cases; heinous and heartbreaking.

You hope with true crime dramatisations that they’re made sensitively, care is taken ways and in no way exploitative. From an objective, pure drama standpoint, these sorts of projects can have their own constrictions: veer too far away from the story, and you’re accused of bending the truth and being disrespectful; stay too close and it almost becomes a documentary and a bit of a pointless exercise.

So I was interested to see the story Whitmore chose to tell here, and how he chose to tell it.

It was very much a straight-down-the-line procedural tale, picking up the story with the murder of Amélie on Twickenham Green in 2004. There were similarities to the murder of Marsha McDonnell a year before, but there was no concrete proof that these two crimes were linked. Brought in to investigate was DCI Colin Sutton who, by his own admission, is more ‘John Major than Churchill’ and this quiet, normal but extremely dogged man (he had previous with a few on his team) was determined to find the killer. Martin Clunes, always a likeable and versatile actor, played Sutton as quite a placid man, with a determined edge – when one of his team came to him to remonstrate about the amount of CCTV footage being pored over, he was steadfast; when he heard that the French authorities wanted him to tell Amélie’s parents the bad news, he put his foot down. And, because it’s a TV drama, there are a few character background elements thrown in too, for balance – he and his wife (an analyst within the Surrey police) were moving house and working through the kind of problems most married couples do.

And this is what was most impressive about this first episode: it had a very normal, non-sensationalist feel to it. Amélie was given the respect that she deserved, and the mundanity – and the frustration – of police work shone through. I still ask myself the same question when any dramatisation of any true crime story hits our screens – do we really need it? What is the ultimate point? And, of course, it’s all about the chase; the story behind the headlines. And with that in mind, Manhunt delivered with a very solid, well put-together and respectful telling of this grim and sad story.

Paul Hirons

The 10 Best Crime Dramas This Week (Monday 7th – Sunday 13th January)

The rush of new stuff here in this week is typical, post-Christmas scheduling. And there’s a lot of new stuff this week – from the return of Vera, Silent Witness, Death In Paradise and Grantchester, to

1 Escape At Dannemora *NEW UK PREMIERE EPISODE*
S1 E2/8
Matt tries to convince fellow inmate Sweat that the reward of escaping from prison is worth the risk. Later, he begins to help Tilly with an inmate she doesn’t get along with.
Tuesday 8th January, 9pm, Sky Atlantic (or all episodes NOW TV)

2 Vera *NEW UK PREMIERE SERIES*
S9 E1/4
DCI Vera Stanhope is called to the tragic scene of the murder of Joanne Caswell. Joanne’s body is found dumped on a landfill site. Dr Pathologist Malcolm Donahue (Paul Kaye) concludes that this has compromised any clear forensic links to the circumstances of her death.
Sunday 13th January, 8pm, ITV

3 Manhunt *NEW UK PREMIERE EPISODES* *LAST IN SERIES*
S1 E2-3/3
Detective Chief Inspector Colin Sutton briefs the team in preparation for Bellfield’s arrest, but when they raid his home they can’t find him. DS Griffiths persuades Bellfield’s frightened partner Laura Marsh to reveal that he is hiding in the loft. Finally they have Bellfield in custody, but the authorities can only hold him for 72 hours.
Monday 7th and Tuesday 8th January, 9pm, ITV

4 Silent Witness *NEW UK PREMIERE SERIES*
S22 E1&2/10
Nikki and the Lyell unit are called in to investigate an attack against a transgender man. Two further assaults are reported, one leaving a potential witness. 
Tuesday 8th and Wednesday 9th January, 9pm, BBC One

5 The Crimson Rivers *NEW UK PREMIERE SERIES*
S1 E1-8/8
Niémans and Camille are called out all over rural France to solve complex cases, which all involve weird brutality far beyond the capacity of local police departments. The protagonists find themselves infiltrating folktale-like crimes with strong moral and mystic themes, dealing with cults, murder based on family tradition and human sacrifice. An unlikely match, Niémans is a reserved, pragmatic and pessimistic old-school sleuth, whereas Camille is bold, brave and not afraid of over-stepping the mark, yet together they make a charismatic and driven duo who will stop at nothing to catch a killer.
Friday 11th January, 9pm, More4 (all episodes on All4)

6 Black Lake (Series 2) *UK UK PREMIERE EPISODES*
S2 E5&6/8
Uno takes the group to visit a deserted cholera hospital on the other side of the island, and Minnie is certain that she is getting close to the truth.
Saturday 12th January, 9pm, BBC Four

7 Death In Paradise *NEW UK PREMIERE SERIES*
S8 E1/8
Four passengers board the bus to Honore, only for one of them to be killed by a knife to the chest. Yet when everyone else claims to have remained in their seats and seen nothing, Jack and his team are baffled by the mystery. Meanwhile, Florence is being unusually secretive – until she confesses to the DI that she has a new boyfriend.
Thursday 10th January, 9pm, BBC One

8 Grantchester *NEW UK PREMIERE SERIES*
S4 E1/6
The year 1956 finds jazz-loving clergyman Sidney Chambers attending a talk by Reverend Nathaniel Todd, a member of the formative US civil rights movement. During the event, protestors disrupt the speech and release fireworks, causing the audience to panic. In the chaos, Todd’s son Charles is stabbed and killed by an unseen assailant. The murder sees racial tensions spike and Geordie Keating is called in to investigate. Things are further complicated when Sidney finds himself drawn to passionate young activist, and their tentative romance faces pressure from all sides. 
Friday 11th January, 9pm, ITV

9 Hawaii Five-O *NEW UK PREMIERE EPISODE*
S9 E3/22
The team join the jungle trail of a family man after kidnappers force him to parachute out of a plane.
Sunday 13th January, 9pm, Sky One

10 DCI Banks *REPEAT*
S1 E1/8
DCI Alan Banks investigates the most difficult case of his life when five girls go missing but only four bodies are found. Chief suspect Marcus Payne is in a coma, and ambitious DS Annie Cabbot from the Professional Standards department pursues Banks in an effort to find out why.
Tuesday 8th January, 10pm, ITV3

REVIEW: Black Lake (S2 E3&4/8)

Last week’s opening two episodes of the second series of Swedish crime/horror drama Black Lake were entertaining enough – in a creepy, locked, single location thriller/haunted house story sort of way – but it also very much stuck to the structure of  the first series: a group of young people were flung together in an isolated place with a scary house with a back story, a main character who might be suffering from psychosis or who might actually be seeing ghostly things, and character dynamics within a group of people that see arguments, secrets and a whole bunch of mistrust and brouhaha. And probably a bit of death, too.

It was actually pretty watchable – Johan was as risible as ever, but Minnie was intriguing; as was the location and the premise.

As ever with a large(ish) cast of characters, I’m going to structure my review around the individuals.  But really, this review could be best summed up with the phrase: and they all had sex with each other on a gorgeous-looking island.

Minnie
Poor old Minnie. She spent most of the episode once again skulking around the corridors of the house, searching for clues about the missing person from last year’s retreat. Things started off badly, too, when Uno’s old-school laundry exercise went a bit pear-shaped – transfixed by a burning sheet (and seemingly quite oblivious to the fact that flames were creeping up her leg – she slipped into reverie. She later confided to Uno what happened to her daughter, Luna, some years before: she got drunk one night, passed out and left some candles alight. Her place burned down with Luna in it.

The rest of the episode saw Minnie have a bit of a thing with Uno, and then team up with Johan to find out more about the person who went missing – a presence she was beginning to feel more and more around the house and, especially, in her room.

We left Minnie very pissed off indeed with the rest of the group and, quite naturally, Uno.

Johan
Johan and Uno’s territorial pissing matches are hilarious to watch, and in episode four Johan spent most of it STILL trying to get hold of his mobile phone and/laptop, to varying degrees of comedy (Gittan, especially, was absolutely on his case). But this insistence on contact with the outside world and his suspicion of Uno (brought on by his snooping into his past life) meant that he wanted to find out more – leading to some discoveries in Uno’s room about his past and the person who went missing the previous year.

Her name was not Maja, as Minnie was told, but Josefine. And Uno was not Uno.

Suddenly Johan and Minnie were forming a bit of a detective team. Still boffing Bella.

Uno
The man with the Starsky an Hutch cardigan was still going with his wide-eyed enthusiasm for all things wellness and self-improvement, although some of his tasks (old-school laundry) probably wouldn’t make it onto many retreat curricula these days.

There has always been the suspicion that Uno is a wrong ‘un (actually any leader of a retreat in a thriller series), and here Uno didn’t really help himself. In fact, his conduct was, frankly, ridiculous – yes, he helped Minnie a great deal, but having sex with her? Come on now.

And, when Johan found out that Uno was really an Erik Larsen and that he had been boffing Josefine last year, you had to ask yourself what Uno/Erik was in this for if not to have sex with lots of women. But is he a killer? I think not.

Oscar
Poor old, creepy Oscar. Suffering from debilitating anxiety, his role this week was, much like last week, to shuffle about, not say much and be in scenes where other characters who told him, “it’s ok Oscar, last year wasn’t your fault”. Bella was being very nice to him, but Amina was not – she couldn’t understand why he had to come back again this year, especially after last year. And, after seeing a flashback with Josefine, we were left to ask: what was Oscar’s role in her disappearance?

Bella
Aw, we like Bella – she’s kind and seems fairly switched on – but what she’s doing falling for a narcissist like Johan is anyone’s guess. Not much of her backstory was revealed tonight, so we think there may well be more from her next week.

Agnes
Agnes is a funny one, and I’m convinced there’s more to come out from her in future episodes. Why is she so dedicated to Uno? Does she have a sneaky territorial/protection thing going on with him? We’ll soon find out no doubt, but in these episodes, she was delving into Johan’s past, revealing his ex, Jennifer.

Gittan
Gittan was being Gittan again – more to come from her, for sure, but in the meantime, she’s just grumpy and foreboding.

Vincent
In one of Uno/Erik’s truth splurges, it was revealed that Vincent has a little brother who, back in the real world, is in prison for armed robbery and murder. This obviously plays on his mind and, he told the group, feels guilty for his incarceration.

Vincent is rapidly becoming one of the group’s most interesting characters. Especially when he laid bare his feelings to Amina, who rebuffed him in a cruel way. Speaking of Amina…

Amina
Anima spent most of the episodes freaked out by Oscar, but ended them with a shovel in the face. Yes, it looked as though Amina was the first to be offed – this confused woman had finally had a meltdown with Oscar (or was it the other way around?), was upset with the revelation that Uno/Erik had been boffing Josefine and had decided to storm off the island (not before she was very rude to Vincent). She found the body wrapped in netting (Minnie wasn’t going nuts! Was this Josefine??) in the boat, and was then taken out.

Bye bye, Amina.

FOR OUR EPISODE ONE REVIEW CLICK HERE