Prime Suspect, starring Helen Mirren as DCI Jane Tennison, originally came out in 1991. It was ahead of its time, as both a show with a woman at its head, and as a gritty police drama focusing on one difficult-to-solve case. Twenty years later, it is still as absorbing and shocking as when it first came out.
Current American police shows may be gritty, but they rarely capture the bleak lives that British policiers seem able to do so effortlessly. Prime Suspect shows London as most have never seen it, the fringes of the city and the people that inhabit it.
The gritty squad room where Tennison works has more in common with the look of ‘70s movies like Serpico and The French Connection than modern police dramas. Prime Suspect also doesn’t shirk from showing the battered bodies or detailing the perversions of a serial killer, yet there is no dwelling on the murders. They are presented in almost documentary fashion, which makes shows like CSI seem positively prurient yet strangely antiseptic. That isn’t to say that the deaths depicted in Prime Suspect aren’t shocking. They are.
While watching Prime Supect it becomes clear how much computer work has changed since the early ‘90s. Television heroes have changed, too. Tennison drinks and smokes incessantly. Every cop at the station seems to have a dependency on nicotine and afternoon visits to the pub. It's a realistic depiction, as the officers need some stress relief in such a dangerous and often thankless job.
Mirren portrays beautifully how Tennison has been overlooked time and again, always being told that male officers won’t want a female boss. When DCI John Shefford (John Forgeham) suffers a sudden and fatal heart attack she quickly makes her move and asks her superior DCS Kernan (John Benfield) to put her in charge of his case, a major murder investigation. The squad, and especially DS Bill Otley (Tom Bell), Shefford’s close friend, are at first resistant and then go all out to try and get her replaced.
Tennison tries to not let the sexism interfere with her work as she investigates the rape and murder of a young woman, a presumed prostitute. The prime suspect in the case, George Marlow (John Bowe), may have been falsely accused. As Tennison continues to investigate, she discovers that the case may involve police corruption and be just one in a series of serial murders.
Tennison just wants a little respect from her team:
Tennison: So what do you think?
DI Frank Burkin (Craig Fairbrass): About what, sir?
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