Edinburgh mental polis is a much more fitting title for this series than the non-committal Crime. It also gives you the flavour of the show with its heavy Edinbugh scheme accents and over the top crazy that almost every character displays.
While Irvine Welsh was really known for writing fantasy versions of working class life with a hint of realism, this series flips that on its head. This is a realist police procedural with heavy elements of flights on fancy in terms of narrative. Crime centres on an emotionally damaged policeman who copes with work stress with alcohol and drugs. Which seems to be how every police person copes with the job. Simply put this is one of those shows that suggests the police are as bad as the criminals which is where fantasy takes over from reality. The fact that these people can barely function based on their personal habits would end their careers in no time. The writing which is a joint effort has some flashes of Welsh in terms of twists, but its fairly standard Taggart-ish territory, with just about every cliche you can think of for this genre making an appearance at some point in the two series. In addition to the main villains there is a bunch of side stories vying for attention, so much so that you can easily forget that there is an actual central investigation in progress. I think they overdid some of these which don't always make sense and they aren't that funny when they are meant to be. Now being Scottish its always nice to see Edinburgh on display but some of the accents were annoying after a while and subtitles will be needed for some who don't know what "barrie scran like!" means. What we could also have done without was the clumsy pontificating about womens lib or trans rights which may have been interesting in the 90s when he said something about being Scottish but now it feels like he's trying to recapture that same magic. Now it just feels dated. Plus, we all have our own opinions so dump the grand political statements and stick to the crime. This is worth watching if you are Scottish and a fan of Welsh, but this is more on the level of Taggart, its not in the same class as some of the American shows on Prime or Netflix. Making a show for Scotland will always limit its appeal. Good enough to binge but Mental Scottish Polis won't generate the same re-watching as Trainspotting.
While Irvine Welsh was really known for writing fantasy versions of working class life with a hint of realism, this series flips that on its head. This is a realist police procedural with heavy elements of flights on fancy in terms of narrative. Crime centres on an emotionally damaged policeman who copes with work stress with alcohol and drugs. Which seems to be how every police person copes with the job. Simply put this is one of those shows that suggests the police are as bad as the criminals which is where fantasy takes over from reality. The fact that these people can barely function based on their personal habits would end their careers in no time. The writing which is a joint effort has some flashes of Welsh in terms of twists, but its fairly standard Taggart-ish territory, with just about every cliche you can think of for this genre making an appearance at some point in the two series. In addition to the main villains there is a bunch of side stories vying for attention, so much so that you can easily forget that there is an actual central investigation in progress. I think they overdid some of these which don't always make sense and they aren't that funny when they are meant to be. Now being Scottish its always nice to see Edinburgh on display but some of the accents were annoying after a while and subtitles will be needed for some who don't know what "barrie scran like!" means. What we could also have done without was the clumsy pontificating about womens lib or trans rights which may have been interesting in the 90s when he said something about being Scottish but now it feels like he's trying to recapture that same magic. Now it just feels dated. Plus, we all have our own opinions so dump the grand political statements and stick to the crime. This is worth watching if you are Scottish and a fan of Welsh, but this is more on the level of Taggart, its not in the same class as some of the American shows on Prime or Netflix. Making a show for Scotland will always limit its appeal. Good enough to binge but Mental Scottish Polis won't generate the same re-watching as Trainspotting.