Line of Duty (TV Series) A Disastrous Affair (2012) User Reviews

An impressive start.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 8 August 2020]

I'm not sure what the other reviewers watched, but for me this was the birth of a drama masterclass. This first episode is dramatic, gripping and very intense, it sets us up nicely for the first series.

We are introduced to the main tram, AC12, we also meet Gates, the chief with the exceptionally high clean up rates, but is he corrupt?

Compston is excellent as Steve, his back story was excellent, we learn plenty about him, for me though, it's Lenny James who dazzles as Gates.

It definitely gets better, but this was a very strong start. 8/10

Decent hook

[snoozejonc · 8/10 · 28 February 2023]

A police detective with a high conviction rate is investigated for possible corruption.

This is a solid start with some good character moments.

The plot does just about enough to hook me into finding out what happens next. Everything involving the character Jackie Laverty is intriguing and there is a twist involving another that works well.

It's too early to say whether or not the characters are going to provide the right level or interest and entertainment value to keep me hooked, but the introduction is strong and sets the scene well. At times suffers from a typical introductory episode issues of clunky exposition dialogue, but this happens in the best of shows.

For me the most notable first impression is the influence of great US TV show 'The Wire' on certain aspects of the story and characters. The police are shown as flawed individuals with workplace politics having quite an influence on behaviour. The writers make these moments uniquely within the character of Line of Duty, which works very well, however there are other instances that feel like either outright tributes or just pale imitations, such as certain visuals of drug dealing surveillance and DCI Gates paraphrasing Omar Little with "You take a shot at the king you better not miss him son".

All performances are strong, with Adrian Dunbar, Lennie James and Gina McKee standing out for me.

I think it's a 7.5/10, but I always round upwards.

Phenomenal pilot episode

[cdsl93 · 9/10 · 14 July 2021]

I loved the characters, plot and soundtrack. Really strong start!

Bang

[bevo-13678 · 10/10 · 19 April 2021]

Pretty good start. I like the bit where they blew up the door.

Episode 1.1

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 24 March 2019]

Line of Duty started here in this introductory episode looking at police corruption.

Young DS Steve Arnott moves into police internal affairs after a botched raid that he refuses to cover up for.

AC12 is overseen by Superintendent Ted Hastings who takes Arnott under his wing.

Hasting's target is DCI Tony Gates (Lennie James) a supercop with a unit that clears up crime and gets the highest budget. To Hastings he is a cop that cuts corners to make his statistics look good. Arnott thinks that Gates is being picked on because he is black.

For Gates though, the AC12 investigation is a distraction he does not need. His mistress Jackie has been involved in a hit and run where the victim is dead. Gates massages the evidence to help her out.

Writer Jed Mercurio might had ripped parts off the plot from news headlines. In this first episode Arnott and Fleming lack depth in characterisation but that will come later.

Hastings has no trouble establishing himself with his blacker than black speech. A Catholic in the Ulster police force. Gates is also an enigmatic character. Cocky maybe even misguided who might also be an unwitting pawn.

A promising start and a bunch of characters in Gates's unit who will have a greater role to play even beyond the first series.

Poor script and Camera operator driving me crazy ....

[ronalamont-91472 · 6/10 · 8 July 2019]

Others have given a run down of the plot so I'll miss this out and give no spoilers. I'm at episode three of season one and I'm hoping the series improves like so many reviewers have commented. I thought the writing of the first few episodes was weak, the acting very predictable given what they had to work with and the camera work most annoying. The combination of cinematic and reality TV show styles really bugged me. Also some scenes turned "soap opera" instead of "film" which took me out of the action. The plot is very unlikely and I, too, am touting for the "bad guy" at this point although his childish retorts are getting me down. Compared to shows like UNFORGOTTEN or BROADCHURCH or VERA ... this show is amateurish.

Not bad - but too fast and too short for true depth.

[greg-201-519789 · 5/10 · 26 June 2012]

A young sergeant in counter terrorism reacts to a terrorist threat and orders the shooting of an innocent man. His boss orders everyone to cover up at the inquest but the sergeant refuses to do so and is told by his boss his career is ended.

He doesn't lose his job but moves to a department AC12 which investigates Police corruption.

Switch to a scene of a senior detective who we later find out to be married talking to a girl in a café in a very friendly manner. He spots two muggers attacking a woman with pram and goes to their aid arresting the two suspects.

Turns out he (Lennie James) is copper of the year with a huge crime clear up rate.

Receiving a phone call from the girl in the café (Gina McKee) who is drunk and has hit a dog with her car, he covers it up by faking a break in and theft of the keys.

Turns out his mistress? Hit a man and killed him. He meets her and tells her to come clean but she doesn't.

AC12 uses a minor infraction to start investigating the copper (Lennie James) but quickly expands the remit for 'laddering' or increasing crime clear up figures by adding lots of charges to the cases.

Ds Arnott (Martin Compston) learns of another AC 12 operative inside Gates's team.

Having been really upset about his mistress Jackie not telling the truth and confessing he later turns up at her house and some canuddling takes place.So much for the anger.

Gates's team messes up on surveillance on another case and two men get killed

In a heartbeat we flash to Gates talking to an incredible thick civilian worker explaining they found out who the hit and run victim was, and he is the accountant for Gates's mistress' firm.

He deletes the links on the file whilst DS Arnott is viewing the same case.

It's OK to watch but there are many things wrong with it.

Too many sub-plots Things are skipped over Zero character depth apart from maybe DS Gates (Lennie James). Far too many stereotypes

If the intention is that we root for AC12 then it fails - personally I found DS Gates to be exactly the type of copper you might want, because even if he does 'ladder' as sanctioned by his boss, he seems to get the job done within the law. As a human being he obviously lacks due to the mistress angle, however the first episode portrays his choice to delete the files as difficult.

If he was a totally bent copper he would not have hesitated.

At this stage the only character with any viewer engagement has to be Lennie James as DS Gates

pston

i like the bad guy and hate the "good guys"

[mindfire-3 · 1/10 · 2 February 2019]

The cop they're going after doesn't seem so bad, but he is trapped in a compromising situation. The main characters in the show have nothing that draws us to side with them. Their white boss even says at one point "No one is blacker than me!", which I suppose is a reference to having suffered from prejudice for being Irish, but comes across as hubris. I want the good guys to lose and the "bad guy" to win, but I didn't care enough to keep watching after the 1st episode of season 2 to be honest. I really don't understand how this show has such a good score on the IMDB. I'll take Endeavour over this any day. This show just comes across as pure self-righteousness. There were so many situations where I found myself just saying to the the screen, "Oh come on, this is absurd." I understand why some people say that the main characters are miscast.