Hit and Run

Series one suffered for being overlog. Two feature length episode to investigate once case.

The second series returns with one stand alone episode.

DCI Janine Lewis has had a baby and returns to duty. She sees a little girl get run over as she drops her son off at school. She also investigates the body of a young woman found in the river.

There is a connection with both cases. The young woman worked at a strip club. The burnt out car that ran over the girl belonged to the manager of the strip club.

The man who owns the strip club is a person of interest but he is supposedly abroad.

This story zips along as Lewis and her team try to solves both cases but then one other suspect is shot dead. Lewis also needs to deal with a potential leak in her department.

There is a twist but it just demonstrates the cops as being rather dim and not doing proper research on potential suspects.

Like other ITV shows made by Granada and shot in Manchester. It is all a bit generic. The USP of this show is Lewis balancing family life and work life.

I don't think Caroline Quentin fully convinces me as a hard as nails detective.

I thought with shorter one part stories the quality might improve. So I gave the second story a try. Though a tighter and crisper script the writing was still mostly weak. The second story was actually more boring than the dragged out the first story loaded up with homelife filler.

Very few red herrings with not many possible villains. Having a wide variety of possible villains is a classic trait of quality British detective mysteries that this was lacking.

The theme that Caroline Quentin as single mother DCI Janine Lewis could juggle raising four young children with a demanding 24-hour on call job just doesn't seem feasible.

Paul Loughran as DS Butchers jeopardizing his career giving the names of possible suspects to an angry grieving father was ridiculous. The modus apperondi of the series is lieng witnesses being broke down to tell the truth through tough interrogation. Pretty much a dead repetition of the first story. The half a minute surprise identity villain reveal was the only interesting part of the story.

For me this isn't a series to watch all the way through. It lacks the quality, intrigue, tension, mystery and stellar writing of the true classic British detective mysteries. A shame the writing is so inferior because the series actually has some decent actors playing the recurring main characters.