REVIEW Viewpoint (S1 E3/5)

We’ve already established that to really enjoy Viewpoint you have to suspend disbelief and just go with it. And I mean really suspend all disbelief and just let it happen.

Because Viewpoint is just so riven with procedural dodginess, any police officers watching this will be having a heart attack. And, sorry to all those watching coppers out there, there was more head-scratching procedural elements in tonight’s episode.

At the end of last night’s second instalment, viewers saw Zoe conducting her own, secret surveillance project in the very next room DC Martin Young was conducting his official ops.

However, early in this episode Martin went to turn off an alarm clock on Zoe’s bedside table. In the open draw, he saw a pair of binoculas and a diary, which contained semi-coded observations from Zoe’s surveillance. When he confronted her about it, she explained that the spying started before Martin was on the scene. She was feeling lonely and this helped to feel connected to people, and to the street and the city.

It was touching moment, and a very interesting take on voyeurism – why do people like to look and not become an active participant in life? Is it the same reason we watch television, or follow people on social media? Is it a need to live life with a safety barrier in between themselves and the outside world? Is it a need to live vicariously through other people.

I also like the way Martin atones for his mistakes by admitting them to whoever it might be. And, let’s face it, there has been a lot of instances where he’s had to own up to mistakes and some highly questionable decisions when it comes to police procedure.

Tonight, some of the seemingly disparate thread began to fuse together.

At the end of episode five, Martin observed Carl Tuckman and his employee Pavel having a fight on the street outside the Tuckmans’ apartment. Following developments in this episode, we now know that Pavel is the brother of Carl’s first wife, Anna, who went missing 12 years ago and has never been seen since.

There was a period where the CID were all in on charging Greg Sullivan and pulled surveillance on his apartment. So into this case was Martin, he went rogue and decided to look into Tuckman himself. He was joined by ex-partner Hayley who, even she wasn’t keen, allowed Martin to break into one of Tuckman’s properties, where he found a mattress, some condoms and Gemma’s school diary.

Which he obviously took with him (didn’t wear any gloves).

He also not only stole a tracker from work and placed it on Tuckman’s car but also followed Pavel and put the heavy emotionals on him, more or less forcing him to go the police station and confess that the alibi he gave to the police for Tuckman at the time of his sister’s disappearance was a lie (why would he take the side of his brother-in-law and not her sister?).

AND… he paid retired cop Vernon a visit at his static caravan and looked through the CCTV footage of Anna’s disappearance. There he found Janice Bains – the mardy neighbour living on the same streets as Gemma and the Tuckmans. (In fact, it was revealed that she inherited £8million from Bill Tuckman, Kate’s father. She was a ‘fixer’ for his own property company.)

But, despite this rogue activity, Martin got less than a slap on the wrists from his boss, DI Liam Fox (the always brilliant Phil Davis) and CID boss DCI Jill Conroy.

See, I told you you had to suspend disbelief with this show.

What is likeable is still the mystery and the human elements. It wasn’t too much of a shock to find Martin moving away from Zoe’s apartment and into the field more, which I thought was a it of a shame because the surveillance scenes were always great but was necessary for the story to move on.

We’ll see what tomorrow night brings.

Paul Hirons

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

READ MORE: OUR EPISODE ONE REVIEW

READ MORE: OUR EPISODE TWO REVIEW