TV Feature - Line of Duty (15)

The one thing we both know: the easiest way to get away with killing somebody? Be a police officer.

And here's a quotation from me as opposed to the show: 'Line of Duty is the most consistently gripping crime drama since season one of 24. Fact.'

Ah, the joy of the box-set. It's twofold in my opinion. Firstly you can field TV recommendations from your friends and commit to a show, avoiding evenings of grim channel-trawling; it's the ultimate in selective viewing. Secondly it provides instant resolution of cliffhangers - none of this waiting a week (and sometimes the guts of a year) to find out whether that gunshot wound proves fatal to your favourite character. To hell with delayed gratification, let's watch the next episode now - because we've got it right here!

Take Line of Duty. I've been literally pedalling through the first three series on my exercise bike, timing things so I can slam the whole of series four while it's still available on BBC iPlayer. Mind you if they stretch to a fifth, and I really hope they do, I'll commit to the week-by-week plod of old. Yes - Line of Duty is that good.

What's the gist? It's all set around AC12, a fictional anti-corruption unit within the UK police force. Headed up by Adrian Dunbar's Ted Hastings, these are the terriers sniffing out officers who take bribes, plant evidence and carry out unlawful killings. Each series centers on one such internal investigation, although as the show progresses longer-term story threads unspool, webs of conspiracy expand and familiar faces return to haunt and provoke. It grabs hold of viewers early and the clutch only tightens. At this rate series four might asphyxiate. 

The reasons for the tight grip are manifold, but chief is the oversight of writer/producer Jed Mercurio. Ten years ago he brought us Bodies, a saga of medical malpractice in a gynaecology and obstetrics ward, which was simultaneously unmissable and unwatchable (a combination that does terrible things to the human brain, let me tell you). There he honed his mastery of tight-squeezing tension, a skill that Line of Duty makes use of to the full. 

The show is rooted deep in police procedure, giving it a sense of realism even through its most jolting plot twists. It's never more engrossing than during its extended police interview sequences, when cornered coppers spar verbally with their AC12 interrogators, trying to protect guilty secrets at every turn. This is daring, nuanced stuff - strewn with police rule-book jargon, but more like a high-stakes poker game between well-matched opponents. Scintillating throughout. Then from the interview room and covert office conversations it bursts into occasional bloody violence. AC12 prod some dangerous animals in their investigations, ones well capable of biting back, and the consequences can steal your breath.

The main reason I love the show, however, is that it foregoes black and white, dwelling instead in the murky gray of moral compromise. Few characters are easy to like, including our ostensible heroes. The AC12 regulars are snoops after all, delving into the secrets of their police colleagues, gaining trust in the name of exposing secrets - and they're not without failings of their own. You'll warm to Detective Sergeants Steve Arnott and Kate Fleming, while still slapping your forehead at the sometimes dubious choices they make. And if you're like me you'll love Dunbar as Hastings - a rock of integrity with an ironic twist to his mouth and a grim hatred of corruption in the force, but not beyond making mistakes in his own life.

As for those being investigated, each series has its own flawed protagonist at the story's core. In series one it's Lennie James as a fascinating study in how bad choices affect a good man. Then the spotlight falls on Keeley Hawes in series two. Times past I've seen her sympathetic and vulnerable or stone-cold bitch. Here she's both wrapped up into one complex bundle, leaving viewers guessing where she sits on the line between guilt and innocence. Daniel Mays is brutal yet strangely touching in the third outing of the show, and who knows what complexities have been woven into Thandie Newton's character in the current series? (That'd be anyone who's already watching it.)

Such is the nature of the show. It deals in human failings and degrees of culpability, within a context of suspense that ratchets up to explosive levels. Towards the end of each episode the main theme builds 24-style, relentless and compelling, as events spiral out of control, often concluding in a moment of flabbergasting shock.

And it's in those moments - those perfect 'What in hell just happened?' moments - you're glad you've got the box-set.