Reviews

Gritty crime thrillers have long been one of Scotland's greatest art forms and most successful export industries, and this reimagining of Sir Ian Rankin's classic Inspector Rebus novels is a stroke of genius.

In the same way Sherlock reinvigorated the novels of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, transplanting the original 1987 characters to the present day, with a younger Detective Sergeant John Rebus, gives the drama a whole new lease of life, with the potential to extend across the entire 24 - shortly 25 - book canon and beyond.

Outlander star Richard Rankin (no relation) is utterly compelling in the title role, and the supporting cast (Lucie Shorthouse as DC Siobhan Clarke, Brian Ferguson as John's brother Michael, Amy Manson as John's ex-wife Rhona Moncrieffe, Neshla Caplan as Michael's wife Chrissie, and Mia McKenzie as John's daughter Sammy) are all outstanding.

This being Scotland, we get to enjoy a riot of colourful bad guys, led by the glorious Stuart Bowman (Guilt's Roy Lynch) as the charming but menacing Edinburgh gangster "Big Ger" Cafferty and Noof Ousellam as his rival Darryl Christie.

Thoren Ferguson is superbly sinister as Siobhan's creepy boyfriend Malcolm Fox from Professional Standards. Meanwhile, Caroline Lee Johnson plays Rebus's boss DI Gill Templar with sympathy and warmth in a thus far under-written role.

As always with tartan noir, there is wonderfully witty dialogue, and locations (filmed in Edinburgh and Glasgow) which contrast the historic, scenic, violent and deprived areas of the country. You'll be planning your next holiday there tomorrow.

There's plenty of gore (more often implied than shown on screen) in a style reminiscent of 2006's grisly classic Low Winter Sun.

One major disappointment is the theme music. It tries to be Maggie Bell's No Mean City but it just doesn't work. It's got the wrong tone altogether and is frankly off-putting, which will cost the series speculative viewers and international sales.

That apart, this is a superb series for those who like to sit down and binge all six episodes of a detective drama at once. At 45 minutes each (BBC iPlayer) this is the best way to enjoy it.

Fans of Taggart, Karen Pirie, Shetland, Dougray Scott's Crime, and, of course, the original STV Rebus adaptations starring John Hannah and Ken Stott will be adding this new 2024 version, by Eleventh Hour Films and Viaplay Group in association with the BBC, to their "must watch" list and hoping for many more series to come.

This marvellously thrilling, entertaining and intensely addictive 'tartan noir' detective series, set on the group of islands of the same name off the far north coast of Scotland, is one of British television's most successful and acclaimed police dramas of recent years.

Series 1 (an adaptation of author Ann Cleeves original novel 'Red Bones', told over 2 x 1 hour episodes) is quite hard work, as there are lots of characters to get to know and several night-time sequences which make the plot lines hard to follow at times, but the pace picks up in Series 2 (three further Ann Cleeves adaptations - 'Raven Black', 'Dead Water' and 'Blue Lightning') and the series really hits its stride from Series 3 onwards (each series consisting of a single made-for-TV story over 6 x 1 hour episodes).

Although it's a "BBC" show, the series is actually made by ITV Studios by the team responsible for many of the greatest TV detective dramas of the last four decades - Taggart, Rebus, Vigil, Guilt, Bodyguard and Line of Duty.

Plots are ingenious. The acting is superb all round. Production values are top-notch. The long-shots and drone-work are simply breathtaking.

The scripts by David Kane and others are taut, riveting and often laugh-out-loud funny.

The drama explores the language, culture, industries and terrain of this remote archipelago, located midway between the Scottish mainland and Norway.

We learn so much about the practicalities of living on - and policing - these 100 windswept, treeless islands, with their inspiring views, rugged cliffs and vast, sandy beaches that the series also serves as an inspiring travelogue: the Shetland Islands tourism website has more details of the buildings and locations used.

Series 1-7 from 2013-2022 are led by DI Jimmy Perez (Douglas Henshall), who won BAFTA Scotland's 2016 Award for Best Actor for his warm and compelling portrayal, while Shetland won Best Television Drama. His successor, Ashley Jensen, as DI Ruth Calder (Series 8), is less believable and likeable, but the excellent recurring cast members (Alison O'Donnell, Steven Robertson, Lewis Howden) sustain the momentum.

Highly recommended for lovers of gripping, binge-worthy police procedurals. Series 1-7: 10/10. Series 8: 7/10.

This ambitious international co-production, filmed partly in Limerick and partly in Antwerp, is a fast-moving action thriller set in the world of terrorism, politics and organised crime.

It stands out by focusing (somewhat implausibly) on the work of the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau and the Belgian Counter Terrorism Unit.

But setting aside this conceit, it offers a gripping and insightful window into organised crime that will appeal to fans of Line of Duty, Vigil and similar shows.

The acting is solid, the story (spread over two -hopefully three - series) is suitably gory, and the production uses a wide range of interesting locations that add style and texture to the action.

The cast is very large - it's a challenge to keep up at times - and Series 2 Episode 1 could have done with a better recap of the state of play at the end of Series 1, given the two-year gap between series.

But go with the flow and things are explained over subsequent episodes. I enjoyed the clever plotting, and found both series, overall, very rewarding, despite the challenges of its two-country premise.

If you find the whole idea of financial crime stultifyingly dull, this is probably not the show for you, but those with an open mind will find it thoroughly entertaining and worth watching.

Series Two of this fast-moving police procedural picks up from where Series One (2021) left off. While it won't win any awards for originality - in terms of characters and relationships - fans of Line of Duty will enjoy the ensemble cast, plot twists and fast pace, which will have you binge watching the entire series in one go. As with all ITV dramas, the production values are very high. Script, music, art direction, choice of locations and editing are first rate. The standard of acting (Tahirah Sharif, Tamsin Outhwaite, Ella Smith, Charley Palmer Rothwell) is excellent. I'd thoroughly recommend this show and I'm already looking forward to Series Three, due in 2024.

If you like your serial killer cop shows gritty, you'll enjoy this stylish, Edinburgh-set six-parter, based on a 2008 novel by Trainspotting's Irvine Welsh. The story is suitably macabre and twisty, and there are some outstanding performances all-round, led by Ken Stott, John Simm, Jamie Sives, and Dougray Scott as troubled detective Ray Lennox. The dialogue is sharply-written and the show makes full use of Edinburgh's wonderful locations. Unfortunately, there are rather a lot of gratuitous sub-plots and flashbacks that drag out the story, and the characters are simply cardboard cut-outs based on every TV cop show you've ever seen. I enjoyed it for the acting and the scenery but the plot itself is so full of holes and procedural inaccuracies that it requires taking with a large shovelful of... salt. (Not the white powder Lennox is frequently shown using).

This must-see addition to the Cold War spy genre leans heavily on the visual and stylistic tropes established by the definitive 1979 BBC dramatisation of John Le Carre's 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy'.

The lighting, settings, dialogue and pacing all pay homage to this classic series.

The production is absolutely sumptuous, with no expense spared. Beautiful photography, set decoration, locations and a legion of telephone boxes, pillar boxes and handily placed furniture vans (together with a cavalcade of vintage vehicles, archive footage and outstanding CGI matte shots) transform modern-day London and Bucharest into the Europe of the 1940s, 50s and 60s.

The narrative is often difficult to follow. Some streamlining and signposting of the plot would help. I watched all six episodes back-to-back and, at times, it felt like I was reassembling the shredded CIA files after the Fall of Saigon. One dark, wintery street, full of shuffling brown shapes, looks much like any other.

But the acting is top-notch. BAFTA-worthy performances from Anna Maxwell Martin, Damian Lewis and Guy Pearce, and the story really rewards those who stick with it. Plaudits for the original score too.

Heartily recommended, though, for multiple viewings, I'd opt for Alec Guinness every time.

A first-rate Scottish 'cold case' whodunnit, based on the series of seven 'Inspector Karen Pirie' novels by Val McDermid, which features a commanding central performance by Lauren Lyle as Karen Pirie.

Lyle's acting is beautifully nuanced - easily the equal of Nicola Walker ('Unforgotten') and Sofie Grabol ('The Killing') - and there are fine supporting performances from a host of mainly Scottish character actors.

The story and production of Series 1's 'The Distant Echo' are reminiscent of the 3-hour Mark McManus Taggart cases of the 1980s (from writer Glenn Chandler and producer Robert Love), which inspired the writers of 'The Killing'. It's all twists and turns, beautifully photographed, painstakingly art directed, and with a deft ear for dialogue.

The sound quality is poor for the opening 30 minutes, so you will need subtitles, but after a slowish first episode, the pace soon picks up and the final episode hurtles along. I found it totally compelling, exciting and believable. The whole 5 1/2 hours flew by at one sitting. A second series is already in production and hopefully we'll see many more to come. Well done to all!