A year after a two-part adaptation of Sophie Hannah’s The Point of Rescue materialised on ITV1 to acclaim for Olivia Williams’ portrayal of DS Charlie Zailer and a more muted response to the bewilderingly complex implausibilities of the storyline, Case Sensitive is back for a second ‘series’: another double-episode reworking of a Hannah novel that persists with the meaningless, trying-too-hard-to-be-punny show name but happily also retains all the elements that made it enjoyable the first time around.
The plot’s a lot simpler, too – although whether it’s as believable as the grouchy, Morse-ish sergeant and her equally grouchy, Morse-ish subordinate (DC Simon Waterhouse, played by Darren Boyd) is another question.
The Other Half Lives sees Zailer taking out her frustrations with her grouchy, Morse-ish boss DI Proust (Peter Wight) at a kickboxing class, where she inadvertently wellies music teacher Ruth (Eva Birthwhistle) in the chops. ‘You must let me buy you a coffee,’ the contrite copper says. ‘It’s the last I can do after dislocating your jaw.’
Ruth, we learn, has been proposed to by her fairly new boyfriend, temperamental pianistic genius – overused dramatic cliché alert – Aiden (Bedlam’s Theo James), but he’s also mysteriously half-confessed to hurting someone and she wants to know what happened. Could friendly chin-kicker Charlie suggest anything? Zailer recommends telling the police officially, but when Ruth refuses, her newfound copper pal takes an interest. An Old Bill Google (or whatever it’s called) and a misunderstanding later, and Zailer has found Ruth’s estranged husband stabbed to death.
Of course, this would be an episode of The Bill circa 1988 if there weren’t personal issues to deal with as well as the actual crime, and the awkwardness that lingered after Zailer and Waterhouse literally copped-off with each other last year (something that Morse and Lewis never had to deal with; at least, not that we ever saw) remains.
The discomfiture is worsened by attractive new team member DC Williams (Doctor Who’s Christina Chong) catching Waterhouse’s eye and matters are hardly improved by DC Sellers (Ralph Ineson). ‘A fiver says he’s shagged her by the end of the week,’ quips the only cop in the nick who isn’t remotely grouchy or Morse-ish. Fans of dated, I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Finchy laddishness will enjoy the apron he wears to celebrate his birthday; those who don’t will probably prefer his stunned response to the unexpected present Zailer gives him.
Olivia Williams is excellent in every role she takes (no matter how small; she was even good cameo-ing in Spaced as the cyclist knocked down by Mike in his van: ‘There’s been an accident … somebody got hurt … a lady’) and Charlie Zailer is enjoyably dolorous; complicated, unpredictable and melancholy.
Amid the dearth of interesting female detectives onscreen in the post-Prime Suspect era, she’s refreshing and compelling. Darren Boyd is as solid as his character is stolid (the early scene where Waterhouse is seen laughing with Amber Williams makes one wonder if he doesn’t have a twin brother or a multiple personality disorder) and the majority of the rest of the cast are either convincingly cantankerous or persuasively pernicious. Only Alan Westaway as the unlikely landlord of an even more improbable pub fails to convince.
Case Sensitive is constructed with the same icy precision as the best of ITV’s police dramas down the years, and with more than enough in the tank to make a full series, it’s a surprise – and, to be honest, a disappointment – that this run consists of a meagre two episodes. More please.
Airs at 9pm on Thursday 12th July 2012 on ITV1.
> Buy the complete Case Sensitive boxset on Amazon.
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