Dalziel and Pascoe is one of numerous
long-running crime/mystery dramas in Britain.
(I mean, not that the U.S., home to multiple Law and Orders, CSIs, and
NCISes, is so different.) Like Midsomer
Murders, Marple, and an
assortment of other shows within its genre, I’m mostly unfamiliar with it. Typically, the only time I poke my head into
a series like this is in precisely this situation: when an actor I’m interested in guest stars
in it. Jodie Whittaker appears in both
installments of this two-part story.
Andy
Dalziel and Peter Pascoe are a fairly familiar odd-couple pair of detectives
working together in Northern England.
You know the drill – Dalziel is coarse and old-school, Pascoe has a
fancy degree and gentler manners, that sort of thing. In this episode, Dalziel is having a day at
the races when a jockey drops dead just after winning his race. Suspicion of foul play disqualifies the
results, and Dalziel and Pascoe (along with younger officer Kim Spicer, on her first
big case) work to get to the bottom of things.
As I
said, I haven’t watched the show before, but it’s pretty easy to get into the
rhythm of it. It’s the sort of thing
we’ve seen before, and you get a feel for the characters quickly. A lot of these British mystery shows, it
seems, prefer either a two-parter episode format or single 90-minute episodes,
stretching the mystery out (for an example from a show I do watch, see Sherlock.) Sometimes this pays dividends and sometimes
it doesn’t. In this case, I’m on the
fence; I feel like I’m already pretty far into this mystery without having much
in the way of answers or illumination.
I like
the “exploring the seedy underbelly of horseracing” angle, with the titular
detectives sleuthing around a stable and getting to know who’s who in the
business – most particular, who might commit murder to throw off the betting
books. Admittedly, though, my favorite
aspect of it is the way it reminds me on the terrific horseracing-themed
episode of Pushing Daisies. Now that was a mystery that had everything,
from gloomy rhyming narration to Hamish Linklater to a possibly-hypoglycemic
werewolf!
But I
digress. Not much to say about Whittaker
yet. Her character, Kirsty, works at the
same stable as the murdered jockey, where additional shadiness (including the
disappearance of another young woman who worked there) seems to have gone down
as well. So far, Kirsty appears to be a
minor character, appearing in just a few short scenes, but there are hints that
we may be getting something bigger from her in Part 2. First impressions: she’s a tenderhearted animal lover who’s not
overly fond of this towering douchenozzle who works with her
(understandable.) It turns out,
unsurprisingly, that the stable is a big ole boys’ club where sexist bullies
rule the roost – just in case you were worrying that it’s been too long since I
reviewed a Jodie Whittaker project that involves some skin-crawling creeps.
Accent Watch
Nearly
everybody’s Northern here, including Kirsty.
Recommend?
In
General
– Possibly, if you’re a fan of the genre.
It strikes me as a solid enough example of its type.
Jodie
Whittaker
– Not so far, not enough to see.
Warnings
Disturbing
images, violence, some creepy sexism, drinking/smoking, drug references, sexual
references, and thematic elements.
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