Collateral #TVReview #BriFri
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Last week, I reviewed The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister. Sim got to see On Chesil Beach and compare it with the book. Gaele visited an isolated island off of Scotland in the book The Endless Beach. Tina watched Shackleton, the TV biopic from 2002 about the explorer played by Kenneth Branagh. Jean read Towers in the Mist by Elizabeth Goudge as part of a readalong.
Collateral is a detective mystery mini-series with the entire series focused on one case. In that sense, it has the feel of the first seasons of The Tunnel and of Broadchurch before we knew there would be more. Collateral‘s four episodes originally aired on BBC2 earlier this year and is available now on Netflix.
A four-part mini-series working to solve one case that turns out to have many unexpected parts.
Carey Mulligan plays the detective inspector. She’s new to the job and that helps make this a police procedural that doesn’t feel like one. The writer, Sir David Hare, said in an interview for The Telegraph, that he wanted to portray police as people rather than workers with computers, whiteboards, and flashing blue lights. This is more of a thriller with lots of dialogue between various characters and not as much police talking to police. The audience knows more than the police because we get to see other characters do things. I last saw Carey Mulligan in Suffragette, because I’m waiting for Mudbound to be released on Blu-Ray.
Billie Piper plays a bit of a trickster character in this series. She’s a witness, but we’re pretty sure she’s hiding things from the beginning. It takes a long time to figure out what and why. Her look and demeanor were enough different that it took some time for me to remember that she was Rose Tyler, companion to the Doctor when Doctor Who was rebooted in 2005.
Nicola Walker plays a priest for the Church of England and has a complicated relationship with another witness, with the church, and with the local MP — just a complicated person, like so many of the characters in this show. I liked Walker in the recurring role she had in Scott & Bailey and really loved her in River.
The story feels ripped from the headlines addressing issues of soldiers at home, immigration, drugs, inter-agency cooperation or lack thereof, and politics.
Have you seen Collateral? What did you think?