ITV1’s new female-led detective series, starring Suranne Jones (Coronation Street) and Lesley Sharp (Clocking Off) as Rachel Bailey and Janet Scott, detective constables in the Manchester Metropolitan police, promises a great deal but – on the evidence of this opening hour, at least – delivers very little.
The first instalment sees Rachel (emotional, intuitive, slightly unstable, lives alone and likes a drink) and Janet (cerebral, calm, subtle, lives with her distant husband and demanding kids) investigating the apparent suicide – as ever, this blatantly means ‘murder’ – of an eighteen year old Turkish woman, with suspicion quickly falling on her husband, Gokhan Yilmaz (Daniel Ben Zenou), and his mistress, Manna Sidhu (Kiran Landha).
Rachel sees parallels between this relationship and her own, failed two-year affair with caddish lawyer Nick Savage (Sherlock‘s Rupert Graves), who unceremoniously dumps her at the start of the episode, saying: ‘I’ve spent all day trying to think of a not-unpleasant way to say it but I suspect there isn’t one.’ ‘You’ve played silly buggers with the wrong woman, pal,’ she retorts, abusing her police powers as she investigates his life and plots some kind of revenge. It’s up to Janet to try to calm her colleague and keep her mind focussed on the case in hand.
The quality of the writing rises and falls as often as the gauge on Rachel’s emotional barometer. The storylines of this opening episode are adequate enough (albeit fairly predictable and sedate) but the dialogue – particularly between the two leads – wavers wildly. One moment it feels stilted, awkward and unrealistic; the next, Scott and Bailey’s bantering sounds as natural as any conversation one might overhear on the Oxford Road or participate in at a pub in Prestwich. ‘They found his knicker-and-spunk collection under his mattress,’ the former explains of a neighbour of the murdered woman. ‘He looked at me like I was some kind of shag-bandit rubber-knickers,’ the latter remarks of a neighbour who surprised her at Nick’s flat in the middle of the night.
However, the humour between them feels frosty rather than friendly – Scott of the Antarctic and Bailey’s on ice – and it’s odd to find such a lack of warmth in a drama led by two characters who are chums as well as colleagues. In fact, there’s a general sense of chilliness running through the whole programme that makes it feel rather dated, as if it belongs to a greyly stereotypical Greater Manchester of the past that has long since been swallowed up by a brighter and more colourful present. It’s difficult to form any kind of attachment to Rachel or Janet other than to pity what seem to be two rather unhappy people.
It’s hardly the most auspicious of starts for a new six-part series, but there is some potential for development in the future. The teaser for the subsequent story indicates a vastly better episode – both in terms of action, story and the relationship between the titular characters – and with such talented actresses as Jones and Sharp in the lead roles, Scott & Bailey will surely improve with age.
Airs at 9pm on Sunday 29th May 2011 on ITV1.