Swansong

A friend of Annie's, Eve Marbury, asks Ridley for help, she wants him to track down her long lost, estranged brother, Luke.

It's another good episode, another interesting story, and for a change it's Ridley asking The Police for help, as opposed to the other way round.

I liked the story, the focus was very much on Ridley, and his new relationships with Eve, the question on my mind, was she sincere or not, you'll also wonder how and why Like vanished.

Were ITV taunting us with that opening music, knowing that Birds of a Feather has been axed, it reminded us, it's so heavily associated with that show.

Dunbar gave another terrific performance, he truly delivers, that scene where he opened up to Eve was fantastic, he's a tremendous actor.

George Costigan was really good here, Line of Duty vibes, he was, as always excellent, such a good actor. I hardly recognised Jack Deam initially, nice to see him in a show outside of Father Brown, am not always a huge fan of his character there, Inspector Mallory, here though, he was terrific, and perhaps stole it.

If only wardrobe could have had the lights on when they put Carol's wardrobe together for this one, some interesting choices.

A good watch, 7/10.

Shown as two parts on the local PBS station, each storyline could be shortened to an hour if they cut out the singing (in this episode both by Ridley and by Eve).

While plots could be interesting as a police procedural, I have the same problem with Ridley being so instrumental to the murder investigations as I do with the vicar being so central to the plots of Grantchester. Although Alex has more cache as a former detective, he still shouldn't have as much to do with the cases as he does.

In this episode it's too much suspension of disbelief that his new female friend sets him on the track that leads him to the solution of the death the police are looking into.

But at least we weren't bored too much with the backstory of the female detective's home life, which is, well, boring.

The series as a whole, but this story in particular, is a plodding parade of clichés which squanders an excellent cast.

Clichés? A team of three writers is identified, but it's hard to believe that the screenplay was not generated by AI. I'd offer examples, but I'd have to put myself through the agony of another viewing. But without doing that, there's the tired trope of the bereaved middle-aged police detective, which is done so much better in Shetland.

Plodding? That's the direction, which leads the cast at a oh-so-steady pace from one cliché to the next. There is supposedly a mystery to be unravelled, but it is resolved not by any exercise of analytical acumen but by the providential arrival of DNA data. Literally phoned in!

The most famous Ridley in English history was a cleric who was burned at the stake for heresy in the reign of Bloody Mary. Adrian Dunbar looks like he's having as much fun.