Unforgettable cop show has all best Lines

Well, that thrilling TV crime drama certainly got the week off to an exciting start for its nine million devoted fans didn’t it?

Twists at every turn, brilliant writing, incredible performances, tense interrogations, bitingly dark humour, memorable set pieces – and a shocking ending that left you gasping for more. (Don’t worry – no spoilers here).

No, I’m not talking about Line Of Duty, whose slow and somewhat disjointed return was perhaps the biggest TV anticlimax since Piers Morgan came slinking back into his Good Morning Britain chair barely 10 minutes after having flounced off in a huff.

I mean ITV’s Unforgotten, which routinely offers twice the drama of Line Of Duty but which, criminally, receives barely a tenth of the attention.

This is not the start of the backlash though. Bitter memories of recent Morse code nonsense may mean I’m wary of saying Jed Mercurio has never let us down in the past, but only a fool would bet against Line Of Duty picking up the pace and looking less like a police training video before too long.

However, if we’d been playing a round of Cop Trumps then I’m afraid the latest adventures of AC-12 would have triumphed only in the theme tune category.

In fairness, it being Unforgotten’s penultimate episode you might have expected it to be really sucking diesel.

But it’s had me gripped ever since the headless body of a Millwall supporter was found in a dumped freezer in the opening episode last month.

I won’t say too much about the gobsmacking cliffhanger at the end of the latest episode, but if anyone even thinks of disturbing me between 9pm and 10pm next Monday I could well end up featuring in the next series.

Unforgotten has also been absolutely storming it on the police corruption front, with enough bent coppers to keep Ted Hastings interested until early retirement.

These bent coppers are not his to investigate though. They belong to DCI Cassie Stuart (Nicola Walker) and DI Sunny Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar) – and the net is closing fast.

All of which leaves you with a simple choice. You either hit the ITV Hub and get up to date before Monday.

Or you go for a float up the Lagan in a bubble and miss what will surely be the greatest TV finale of the year.

NB. For the benefit of the DIR, the TV critic is indicating you should choose option A.

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It’s gripped me since a headless body was found in a freezer