Law & Order: UK Series 1-8 (2009-2014) - Review
Starring: Bradley Walsh, Ben Daniels, Freema Agyeman, Jamie Bamber & Harriet Walter
Written By: Chris Chibnall (Head Writer)
Directed By: (Various)
Certificate: 15
Here's
a quick challenge for you (though it will probably only work if
you're in the UK). Take your remote control, access the TV guide and
check what's coming up for the day on any ITV channel. I guarantee
that on at least one of them, there is at least one crime drama
coming up today. It's one of the main problems with what is an
otherwise very respectable broadcasting network – over-saturation
of crime drama. More often than not, the crime dramas it regularly
screens are quite gentle, slow and with only a light focus on the
actual crimes. So can Law & Order: UK, adapted from
the popular long-running American series, shake things up with a
faster, more serious and brutal outlook?
Law
& Order: UK
largely follows Detective Sergeant Ronnie Brooks of the Metropolitan
Police Force, along with his co-workers and junior partner as they
attempt to solve the various high-profile crimes in London. Once the
police have apprehended the perpetrator(s) of the crime, the case is
passed on to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), where it's up to
the prosecution team to build a convincing argument in court and see
that justice is carried out. Each episode focuses on a different
crime and case, with a variety of twists and turns to be found in
each.
If
I haven't done so already, it's probably worth pointing out that I've
yet to watch a full episode of the original US Law & Order.
This isn't because I have something against the series, but simply
because I wouldn't know where to start. Not only have you got the
original show, but a ton of spin-offs that altogether combine to make
a franchise with over one thousand episodes, and what little of a
life I do have denies me the time to catch up on all that. However,
from what little I do know of the original show, Law &
Order: UK seems to be a pretty faithful adaptation. Each
episode begins with opening narration very similar to that found in
the original, as well as the trademark “Clang” sound with each
change in location. It also hits the ground running, finding and
sticking to a reliable format of having the first half of an episode
focusing on the efforts of the police, and the second half focused on
the prosecutors in court. The episodes know better than to waste time
too, with each one moving at a strong pace that makes you feel a
sense of urgency and importance, as well as keeping things fresh.
Meanwhile, the often shaky and handheld camerawork (particularly
during the police segments), and seeing the day-to-day lives of our
main characters makes you feel like you're in the room in each scene.
In
a world of TV where it increasingly feels like you have to have
watched a dozen other shows before watching something else, it's
gratifying to say that Law & Order: UK is one of
the most accessible shows in recent memory. Thanks to its heavy focus
on story, it's very easy to access from almost any episode.
Seriously, you don't even necessarily have to start at the beginning
of a particular series, you can start off from almost any episode at
any point of any series, with just a few exceptions of course. For
the most part, each episode is it's own self-contained little drama
focusing on a specific crime, before switching to another case in the
following episode, another in the next etc. etc. You don't even need
to be familiar with any of the show's recurring characters to
understand what's going on.
The
characters themselves are mostly interchangeable, and with the
exception of Bradley Walsh as Ronnie Brooks, the cast by the end of
the final series is completely different to how it started out. That
being said, the characters themselves are fleshed out by a
consistently fantastic cast that features some serious talent.
Bradley Walsh has a personality that's very hard not to like, and so
is perfectly cast as Ronnie, the most genuine and human character
here. He also works well with whoever's in the role of his junior
partner, whether it's Jamie Bamber, Paul Nicholls or Ben Bailey
Smith. The prosecution side of things also brings a more serious and
at times slightly political edge. It's also nice to see the legal
court process put on screen and made to be just as entertaining as
solving the crime, especially given how badly it's under-represented
in most crime dramas (although some dramas such as Silk
are the exception). The prosecution team are made up of talent
including Ben Daniels, Freema Agyeman, Bill Patterson, Dominic Rowan,
Peter Davison and Georgia Taylor, and not one disappoints. Everyone
brings something unique and distinctive to their roles, despite the
lack of focus on their characters.
This
is probably the greatest strength of Law & Order: UK
– even though they don't get much in the way of focus or
development, you still care about the main characters. Occasionally
it will take time out in an episode or two to deliver a character
piece, but these kind of episodes are few and far between. To strike
a balance that's so good between heavy focus on story, with far less
on character, but that you still care about its characters is a
remarkable achievement. Few shows can actually reach such an
effective compromise. Particularly with crime dramas, most neglect
the actual crimes to focus poorly on characters and soap drama, but
this show is smarter than that and presents the crimes and stories it
wants to tell with sharp, clear-cut focus.
The
show is also noticeably darker than your typical light-hearted,
countryside drama. It gets into some really gritty urban subject
matter, and the show makes itself known that it's a UK adaptation by
inserting plenty of London iconography in the background. It also
pulls few punches and gets reasonably graphic – within minutes of
starting, the very first episode sees police officers finding a dead
infant left abandoned in a bag in a car park. There's a definite
variety in the crimes it focuses on and presents, dealing with crimes
including murder, rape, arson, fraud, conspiracy, hate crimes,
kidnap, drug abuse, paedophilia etc. What makes this range and
variety even better is that there's not always the same outcome at
the end of each episode. While most of the time justice is served and
someone is found guilty in court, sometimes, just as in real life,
true justice isn't done and some people walk free, or even worse, the
wrong person is found guilty and maybe even killed in prison.
Whenever the wrong outcome is achieved, it shows that Law &
Order: UK has guts and the ability to say that as much as
we'd like it to be the case, a happy ending isn't always reached.
However,
while it is a very solid show, there are still a couple of issues to be had
with this series. Not only is the show an adaptation of the original
American series, but each episode is also adapted from another
episode of the original. Sometimes this doesn't translate well into
the UK series because of differences in American and UK law. Now I
don't claim to be some kind of expert on the law, but in the UK,
Crown Prosecutors don't carry out investigations themselves, yet many
of the prosecutors in this series are shown doing the same work as
the detectives. Whether or not District Attorneys in America can
carry out their own investigations, I don't know, but because the
plot of each episode is adapted from the US series, this doesn't
always carry over well. The Crown Prosecutors in the series also
often find themselves in a one-sided battle in court. A lot of the
time the series depicts the legal battle in a very one-sided light,
showing the prosecution as very righteous and up against a seedy or
morally corrupt defence, which is unfortunate given some of the
ethical dilemmas the show can present us with.
In conclusion,
Law & Order: UK is a very grounded and gritty
series that's able to do enough to set itself apart from the dozens
of other crime dramas ITV has going on. The fact that it's able to
cut through all the bloatware that usually sets other crime series
back is one of its greatest assets and part of the reason why it's
worth watching. Add to that a variety of crimes and situations,
characters that you care about without getting distracted from the
main story, and a whole roster of strong performances, and Law
& Order: UK lives up to the success achieved by its
American counterpart.
Law & Order: UK
8/10