Witchdoctor Rating
-
8/10
Summary
The Brits have done it again with a strong female lead in a superior police drama. ANDREW JOHNSTONE is impressed.
DCI Cassie Stuart (Nicola Walker) heads a special police unit that specialises in historical murders: bodies that have turned up decades after the events with barely a clue and in sparse skeletal detail. Her team have their work cut out for them but they are up for it. She is a steady head, focused and compassionate, a reliable leader and intuitive investigator.
She is the type you would follow into battle or lay your life on the line for because she is warm, encouraging and fearless. But she is more than just a detective, she is a broad thinker and is all too aware of the emotional minefield she is walking as loved ones of the deceased are discovered and bandages are ripped from old wounds. DCI Stuart is not the troubled detective standard in British productions, but a comfortably divorced mother of one who lives with her Dad, who cooks and cleans so she can devote herself to her work.
Part way through Season Two over a moment in a pub, her second DI Sunil โSunnyโ Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar)ย leans in for a kiss while expressing his admiration for her. โOh no, not going thereโ, she gasps, leaning back and bidding him a hasty goodbye. A couple of days later she says to an abashed Sunny: โLook, about the other nightโ, but before she can continue he says, โOh please donโt feel bad.โ Blinking, she replies: โI donโt feel bad, I was going to say โdonโt waste your time feeling badโ.โ Chagrined, Sunny acknowledges his bossโs wise and pragmatic approach to life.
Yeah, Cassie is not interested in being an emotional clichรฉ, and in fact she is not interested in playing the woman at all. Sheโs a professional and when she gets home she wants to nurse a glass of wine while contemplating the tangled threads of the case currently on the table. The rest is unnecessary.
Season Two has just wound up, an especially complex case that begins with an old body found sealed in a suitcase in a river. As she pieces it all together Cassie is forced make some hard but practical decisions that do her career no favours but end up being the right choices for all concerned. This is a damned good series: absorbing, well written and humane, and Nicola Walkerโs DCI Stuart is a fine tribute to the unflashy leadership method that women so often excel in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOC8CcuWk1M
* The Internet and โTV on Demandโ has revolutionised the way we watch TV shows. No longer beholden to television networks and their programming whims and scheduling, we can watch back-to-back episodes of new and old shows to our heartโs content without those annoying advertisements interrupting the narrative flow. TV viewing has suddenly become more accessible, democratic and a hell of a lot more fun. ANDREW JOHNSTONE scours the available channels and finds the best of the best, so you donโt have to.