Lynda La Plante’s Trial and Retribution is a long, complicated, and often frightening view of what it means to enforce the law and put criminals in jail. The pressure to collect witness statements and evidence and being able to seal a conviction almost make you understand why some police officers, lawyers, and victims often go mad. The first four episodes of the series which comprise this set feel like they could almost be full-length feature movies made for the big screen.
David Hayman plays Detective Chief Superintendent Michael Walker, a man whose dedication and obsessive love for the job has put his family life in jeopardy. Kate Buffery plays Detective Inspector Pat North, a woman who is equally obsessed with the job and is attracted to Walker. The two spend their time working together on cases and have very different styles. Walker is your classic, hard-boiled detective but without the romanticism; there’s not much lovable about him. North is the less animated of the two and harbors her feelings much more than Walker does.
Law enforcement shows often sacrifice character for the sake of the crime plot itself. The idea is that it's all about the crimes and the criminals. The cops and the lawyers are the boring, less important aspects of crime shows and therefore are often as important to the genre as wallpaper, at least on television. Trial and Retribution keeps it equal. Not only are the criminals and crimes given full attention, the cops and lawyers are all matched with just as much importance.
The volume one set includes a remarkable interview with Lynda La Plante, the creator of Trial and Retribution, where she goes about explaining the creation of the series. It’s interesting to note that although the world praises to hell and back the creative split-screen camera work of FOX's 24, the producers of the show actually came to La Plante to learn how they could incorporate the style of T&R into the FOX series before it ever aired.
There are some differences between the way that 24 uses the split-screen camera and the way T&R does it. To me, at least in terms of how it feels, even though the split-screen allows you to look at different locations and characters and actions, there’s a certain synergy to it all in Trial and Retribution. Sometimes the split-screen effect jumps back in time to an earlier part of the story, which sometimes occurs during the trial to give clarity to what is playing out in the trial itself.
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