Blue Murder (TV Series) Fragile Relations (2004) User Reviews

Racial tensions

[gridoon2024 · 7/10 · 21 August 2011]

A 24-year-old mullah (Muslim priest) is killed when his apartment is set on fire. Initially, suspicions fall on the far-right elements of Manchester, and in particular on one politician who had a public debate with the victim on TV, but then other facts begin to surface, like a possible secret love affair of the mullah which might have caused resentment within his own community. DCI Janine Lewis calls for a Muslim detective to assist her on the case, as racial tensions in the area mount.

This is an interesting story with a politically relevant subtext. Ultimately, the episode comes to the only sensible conclusion - there are good and bad people on both sides of the fence, and racial divides are often put on by people not because they believe in them, but for sheer personal gain. As with the previous episodes, you have to pay attention if you want to keep up with the story - this is not a series you can "half-watch". *** out of 4.

Fragile Relations

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 6 September 2022]

Fragile Relations seems to be a story with parts of it ripped out of the newspaper stories of the time.

A young Muslim priest is killed in a house fire. He was popular with the younger generation and had skirmishes with the far right.

Near to the mosque he preached was a pub frequented by the far right.

Mark Clayton, head of the Britons First party branch in Manchester immediately becomes a suspect.

With fraught community tensions. DCI Lewis brings in a young Muslim policeman who lets his emotions get the better of him.

Lewis finds out that the young imam was involved with a woman who had gone missing. Maybe her family had something to do with the arson.

The far right was always going to be a red herring. It also suffers from having a well known Indian actor in a minor role.

Still it's a nicely balanced story. A focus more on greed.

The community can be both a lever and a trap

[Dr_Coulardeau · 10/10 · 13 June 2008]

Here, Manchester explodes with another social problem, that of the large Moslem Pakistani community. It all spins around a mosque and a young mullah who is assassinated. You double this side of the problem with the militancy of a racist party and its leader and you have an explosive situation and some would like to excuse the lack of a real inquiry with the danger of this explosive social, religious and ethnic situation. The film shows how the English have set up a local police corps entirely composed of members of the community to do the police work in this community, and one of the members of that unit will be the interface between the Manchester criminal unit and the mosque officials and community and that's how the truth will finally come up and out, how too the female Inspector will be able to enter the inner circle of the mosque without creating any resentment.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

In correct order listing for this and #3 - Fragile Relations

[repete52 · 9/10 · 8 February 2021]

Fragile Relations is actually episode #2 of Series/season 2. Up In Smoke is actually episode #3.