Duty a pleasure
A ONEEYED Rihanna triumphed over Vladimir and Putin, Prince Charles just another David Beckham on Host Jason regular Bigheads. Manford to eliminated Ed Sheeran: “Where did it go wrong?” When he released Galway Girl. A WEEK goes by and, under normal circumstances, any TV show quietly fades.
But then Line of Duty is no ordinary British TV show.
It’s the best this decade and possesses such staggering swagger that it set up a whodunit in scene one of series four and didn’t really feel it had to answer it.
Some misguided souls, though, have branded the police drama “guff” and accused it of “going all EastEnders” with the admittedly far-fetched plot. So let’s put them right on a few things. Starting with a small matter mentioned by writer Jed Mercurio on ITV’s This Morning on Tuesday: “It’s a fiction, and one of the things that’s fictional about it is the way things happen so quickly.”
OK, so the finale could have been happily extended to 90 minutes like series three’s – if ITV can shunt News at Ten eight weeks solid for The Nightly Show disaster, surely BBC1 can budge its bulletin one night for a masterpiece. But what Mercurio called the “edited highlights” is probably still the best hour of telly you’ll see all year, thanks to the f abulous s cript and i ncredible performances of Thandie Newton, Adrian Dunbar and Martin Compston.
Granted, there is an overload of acronyms.
The CPS charged the SIO, DCI Roz Huntley, after AC-12 lost her GPS so used ANPR to track her near the A38/A51, where she dumped items reference YLM5, MRT-3, RN-1 and CED-2, containing her DNA and MRSA, which she used as ID to unlock BTV-1.
In reply, the DCI pulled out RH- 1 to incriminate ACC Hilton, who’s possibly top corrupt cop “H” and wanted to hand the SIO her P45, for the benefit of the DIR.
And that doesn’t include the KRG-13/30 mix-up, DC Fleming at A&E, FIs at Tim Ifield’s flat, Nick Huntley framed with TRH-7, Hastings’s Reg-15 or any of AC-9. Yet it all not only makes perfect sense but adds authenticity.
And the fact is that Roz dramatically confessing and then taking Hilton and Jimmy down with her, gun- toting DC Jamie Desford’s AC-12 bust-out bid and Hastings, who’s clearly been to SAS sniper school, shooting Balaclava Man amounted to a thrilling climax.
There was one moment, however, I concede Line of Duty did indeed “go all EastEnders”.
Or rather, EastEnders went all Line of Duty, on April 21, when Lauren Branning received a text from love interest Josh Hemmings.
The significance? It came from 07700 900 183 – just two digits from the unregistered mobile Hilton used to contact Balaclava Man and part of the murderous gang’s network of untraceable “burner phones” with similar numbers.
“H” as in Hemmings?! Don’t answer it, Lauren! AN unsatisfying end to Car Share, with Peter Kay pulling the plug after a miserly ten episodes. We’re left with the memory of John and Kayleigh’s final Billy Ocean duet, holding hands, only to be interrupted by Forever FM’s DJ. John: “No, no, no! That’s bang out of order. You can’t cut a song like that off midsong. That’s just bad programming.” Well, now you know how we all feel.