This, the third series of "Line Of Duty", was if anything, even better than the first two, which is saying a lot. For five one-hour and one extended 90 minute finale, it gripped my wife and I as we watched every compulsive twisting and turning minute of this superb police procedural drama. Only, ironically, in the last episode, did I think it overreached itself, with a violent shoot-'em-up climax which seemed at odds with the very still but very intense psychological drama which had preceded it and also that it laid on Dot's guilty conscience a bit too thick when he started finding Hamlet-like visions of Lindsay Denton haunting him.
It all started six episodes ago with a rogue cop, the intimidating young leader of an elite armed-weapons police unit ruthlessly and inexplicably gunning down a surrendering escaping criminal. For the first two episodes, it seemed he would be the focal point of the series, then by the end of episode two, he was out of the picture but not before giving the show its main narrative strand, namely the years-old cover up of a high-ranking paedophile ring.
I won't say any more about the densely-layered plot, only that it inexorably draws in to its black heart the four main team members of the Anti-Corruption Unit, plus other prominent characters like the self-serving senior PR police female representative who tries to seduce the AC commander and of course the return of Keeley Hawes avenging Denton character, fresh-sprung from prison.
I do think though the BBC was wrong to mock-up photos of Jimmy Savile as being in collusion or at least acquainted with the paedophile ring as it added nothing to the story and seemed revisionist in nature, especially given the recent official report's criticism levied on the corporation for failing to expose Savile's heinous acts.
But I can forgive that and the other indiscretions in the show, as indicated above, when the writing, direction and acting are of as high a standard as this. It may be a cliché, but this is why I pay my licence fee.
It all started six episodes ago with a rogue cop, the intimidating young leader of an elite armed-weapons police unit ruthlessly and inexplicably gunning down a surrendering escaping criminal. For the first two episodes, it seemed he would be the focal point of the series, then by the end of episode two, he was out of the picture but not before giving the show its main narrative strand, namely the years-old cover up of a high-ranking paedophile ring.
I won't say any more about the densely-layered plot, only that it inexorably draws in to its black heart the four main team members of the Anti-Corruption Unit, plus other prominent characters like the self-serving senior PR police female representative who tries to seduce the AC commander and of course the return of Keeley Hawes avenging Denton character, fresh-sprung from prison.
I do think though the BBC was wrong to mock-up photos of Jimmy Savile as being in collusion or at least acquainted with the paedophile ring as it added nothing to the story and seemed revisionist in nature, especially given the recent official report's criticism levied on the corporation for failing to expose Savile's heinous acts.
But I can forgive that and the other indiscretions in the show, as indicated above, when the writing, direction and acting are of as high a standard as this. It may be a cliché, but this is why I pay my licence fee.
