Maverick

No, not the late fifties tv Western series........

How would tv companies fill their airtime without the good old cop drama? Along with numerous medi-soaps a good proportion of primetime UK drama viewing on tv is filled with various coppers who have ranged from the good (DI Jack Frost in a Touch Of Frost), the bad (DCI Gene Hunt in Life On Mars), the cerebral (DCI Endeavour Morse in Morse) the mad (Det Supt Peter Boyd in Waking The Dead) to the preposterously barking (DCI John Luther in Luther).

What all these characters have in common is their deviation from "doing it by the book", which marks them all out as the cop drama staple "The Maverick". The current crop of cop dramas includes....


Thorne
In which the great David Morrissey is beset by demons from a past case when a paedophile killer goaded our hero into shooting him in the head at point blank range, only for Thorne to later find out that the victim's son witnessed the killing, an event that set the boy on his own course of nefarious activity.
Thorne is of course an unconventional copper who does things purely on instinct, who unsurprisingly has a traditional by-the-book boss who shows all the detecting instinct of a naked blind man in Burtons. Thorne has an ally in medical examiner Phil Hendricks played in typically edgy fashion by Aiden Gillen, who when off duty likes to paaarty big time. Thorne's love interest is the gorgeous Natascha McElhone, who plays Anne Coburn, a hospital neurologist who swans around her workplace with her long blonde hair swaying in her wake. I wish my doctor loooked like that! It's all quite par for the course really, but it's well written and Morrissey & Gillen make a good team.

Update - the first episode of the second storyline ("Scardeycat") was on last night (Sunday 31/10) and we learned that Thorne had just lost his mother, who we are told by the highly strung Irishman Phil Hendricks, "was a militant Republican" and an all round good ol' gal. One suspects that at some point something dodgy and Irish terrorist related will come back to bite Thorne on the ankle.
A rather fine precedent is being set here in that unlike a lot of cop dramas, Thorne's character is being slowly revealed to us, rather than the usual BANG! - "Here I am fully formed and as maverick as I'm gonna get". I like this way of unpeeling our hero's character, I think this series could be a winner.

PS - On parting from Thorne at the beginning of last night's episode, Hendricks, who is rightly pissed off with his mate (won't say why, you'll just have to watch it) says "Sorry for your loss" - whether he meant Thorne's mum or their friendship is open to question...all will be revealed.

Whitechapel
Not well written, at all. One gets the impression it's scripted by a team of ADD sufferers on a tea break. At one point Phil Davis, who must be thinking he deserves better than this, utters the line "Don't try and be the best detective in the world, just be the best detective you can be". I laughed. No-one in the real world says things like that unless they happen to be pretentious twats. Davis must have winced when he first read that in the script, but I suppose he has bills to pay like everyone else.

As the title suggests this is set in the East End district of the same name. There have been two series so far (I refuse to use that awful Americanism "seasons"), the first followed a serial killer intent on recreating the Jack The Ripper murders, and the second was based on the Kray twins. The three main characters are DI Joseph Chandler (Rupert Penry-Jones), Det Sgt Ray Miles (Phil Davis) and Edward Buchan, an amateur criminologist (Steve Pemberton).

In the first series we learn that Chandler is a fast tracked "posh" copper posted by his superior to solve the murder of a woman in Whitechapel as a precursor to being promoted. It turns out that this murder is part of a series of killings replaying The Ripper murders. Chandler's the "anti-maverick" of the show who does things by the book to the point of reading manuals before going after people. This twist on the usual anti-establishment cop is about the only half-inspired thing about the show. He's also bedevilled by a bad case of OCD and likes to rub ointment into his temples (don't ask), and is initially detested by Miles, a man with a cynical streak so wide you could drive a bus along it, but a "good copper" with it, and played brilliantly by Davis, who in turn despises the busybody interjections of Buchan, who of course has just written a book on The Ripper.
Given that London in the 21st century is far better lit than the faux Victorian dimness projected, and that the police now have all the mod cons of criminal catching technology at their disposal, it's a wonder that the Nu-Ripper was not caught after the first episode, but, hey, we're not going to let that get in the way of a good story are we?
Following some frankly unbelievable leaps of imagination, our hero is nearly killed by the baddie, let's him get away at the last moment, but all is saved when Nu-Ripper conveniently tops himself. All quite daft but enjoyable.

Right, if we thought the first series was contrived, just wait for second! Chandler, having cocked up The Nu-Ripper case has missed his promotion and so is posted permanently to Whitechapel nick. Ray Miles has moved on from detesting his boss to becoming predictably fatherly and protective of him.
This time round, it's the Kray twins, so instead of a recreation of Victorian gloominess, we get 60s East End London with all the trimmings. It really is Life On Mars without the time travel.
The premise here is that back in the late 70s, Ronnie Kray was supposedly receiving visits from a wannabe gangster's moll who somehow persuaded him to give her a sample of his man-phat so she could go home and get the out the turkey baster. Nine months later, yep, you've guessed it, she has twins. Woohoo. And guess what, little Jonnhy Kray grows up to have a good business brain, while little Jimmy Kray turns out to be a psychotic sadistic sociopath with a liking for young boys.
Before our brave team have twigged they have Kray copycats on their patch all is normal in Whitechapel Police Station. Within five minutes of having discovered the Kray connection, all the other coppers in the station are suddenly averting their gaze whenever Chandler & Co look their way, and within ten minutes it is discovered that the Krays Jnr have half of London in their pockets right up to a peer of the realm. The transformation is so quick and so ludicrous, the series from that point became a case of "it's so bad it's good" hilarity. Oh, and Buchan has handily made a film all about the villainous twins, which Chandler uses as a reference point, and the team use Buchan's house as a base when the Nu-Krays are on their tail, because they "carnt trust no-one, guv".
There's another scene where Chandler & Miles arrange a meeting with Johnny (the brains) in a local pub, thinking that they have finally managed to separate the twin tea leaves. When they turn up the street and the pub are completely deserted. They go in and wait. A car pulls up outside and out get Johhny & Jimmy (the nutjob) who both stand in the middle of the still deserted road and spend five minutes raking the pub with sub-machine gun fire! This is a busy area of the East End in 2010 and there's nobody around, nobody reacts? I laughed a lot!
It turns out that the young boy Jimmy currently favours turns out not to be a boy at all, which leads Chandler to wonder what else is fake about these two, who incidentally look like more like Ron Mael than either of their supposed father or uncle. So he challenges Psycho Jimmy to a boxing match. Well, you would wouldn't you? His cunning plan is punch the completely barking Jimmy so hard he draws blood thereby obtaining a sample for later DNA analysis that of course proves that these two are not who they claim to be. With some more high speed contrivance, the underworld and everyone else living in fear of the Nu-Krays suddenly lose all allegiance once they discover the truth, and, our team later march through Whitechapel nick arresting all the bent coppers, who meekly give up without so much as a whimper between them. I could detail other contrived nonsense, but you probably get the picture. 

Unbelievable tosh, unintentionally hilarious!

Shattered
Just started last week (Monday 18th Universal Channel) is a cop series whose hero has an undiagnosed split personality disorder. It saves on actors, as he could do the Good Cop/Bad Cop routine by himself, and maybe throw in Narcissistic Cop and Shy Cop and any other kind he fancied! That sounds like it could be awful, so I must watch it...
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