Protection

Another great British police story with a brilliant Siobhan Finneran as always. She has really turned into one of my favourite actresses. The story line keeps you engaged throughout the episodes and without too many plotholes as well. I watched it over a couple of days and never felt bored at any point of time. It's really amazing how these Britt's can come up with one exiting series after another in this specific. If you liked Happy Valley and some of the other similar police stories you will definitely also enjoy this one. Without revealing the story I can say that the plot and the ending also was well crafted indeed. Highly recommended!!

I had high hopes for this with such a strong writer and cast, and it's nice to get a different perspective (witness protection) to the usual procedural. Unfortunately though it's confusing, full of holes and has that annoying thing where people who have presumably reached management or leadership by being good at their job for many years suddenly start making frankly daft decisions. At the same time rules that apply to everyone else are exempt for important characters in order to give them space to further the story. It gets increasingly confusing and annoying so by the denouement I'd really stopped following/caring what was going on.

I am disappointed by a couple of issues in this series. To begin with how can these professional witness protectors fail to check the girl's backpack where she has a surf tablet, not believable. Then the scene where the room in the hospital is left totally unguarded leading to yet another death. Professional witness protectors, no wonder people don't want to be witnesses.

The acting is really good, the intrigue is quite gripping and the story line is quite good however the issues I mentioned are enough to make me give the program such a low rating.

A sad reflection is that the amount of crime solving programs from all countries that involve corrupt police must be an indication that corruption within police forces worldwide is very common and very worrying.

Siobhan's Character is a dullard. Wardrobe has her dressed poorly with an awkward walk. When confronted with dangerous situations she's a bit of a deer in headlights. Granted, that's the script she was given so it's her character to do very little in those situations.

While I say this when only viewing three episodes, that is halfway through the show so her character is well established as a poor decision maker. While this drama takes place in the UK, it apparently doesn't have any CCTV every other UK show utilizes. So as I advance to each new episode, I'm having more questions about her decision making skills that have me wanting to just stop watching.

I am writing this after series 1. I assume there won't be a second. This was a good series until the finale.

Maybe it was the strong cast that had kept me engaged (a lot of familiar B-listers but none of them really top billing) but the story just seemed to fall apart at the end. Maybe 6 episodes was too much for the writers.

I love Siobhan Finneran but this probably goes to show that she is a great support actress rather than a leading lady (even in Rita and Sue and Bob too see came second each time. The one time she came first there was an unsatisfactory outcome and the same goes for this show).

To have Siobhan, Katherine Kelly and Catherine Tyldesley in the first episode won me over but why they got as big a actress as Catherine Tyldesley for such a small role is beyond me (I guess she had a ship to catch) and she and Katherine Kelly are similar in looks and acting style.

I loved David Hayman as the cantankerous father, reluctantly having to give up on his independence as his health wanes and the way he acts with his daughter who dutifully followed him into the force is brilliantly written.

For a story made mainly in Liverpool, it did seem to have very few scousers but some great northern actors seeing the story through to a poor and convoluted conclusion.