This isn’t exactly Friel-good viewing ...

MARCELLA (ITV)

IF you were bored of the brood-fest being served up in the BBC1 series Collateral, ITV had some rival gloom on offer last week.

Marcella, about the most unlikely-named British female copper since Harriet Makepeace, returned for a second series.

Anna Friel plays the unsettled officer prone to violent blackouts.

This new series is so grim it crams in three miserable plotlines before the particularly moody opening credits have even started.

First, Marcella looks as if she’s about to jump off a building.

Before we can work out what’s going on with her, we’re then shown a young boy chained to a bed.

Then a chap doing some home improvements discovers a child’s ear in a wall.

A possible suicide attempt, sex abuse and child murder – and the Scandi-style crime drama’s opening credits haven’t even kicked in, yet.

Light-hearted mid-week entertainment this isn’t.

Marcella might be trying to shock us but viewers of the previous series – and similar shows like Luther – are familiar with all these supposedly stunning twists and turns.

If they really want to shock us, they could show Marcella perhaps cracking a smile, or investigating some missing tuck shop money.

All to the sound of some really moody music.