Cooper And Fry is another mismatched cops drama, where in this case, DC Diane Fry’s (Mandip Gill, who I first saw in Doctor Who when it was circling the drain, before the last two series hit the flush) just arrived at her new nick, and could easily have qualified for a flashy job in Leeds, but came to Eden Dale. Why? It looks about as exciting as Sandford, Gloucestershire.
But no time to stop, because there’s been a muh-duh!
Okay, no Scots accents here, but I can’t help it with a cop drama, and here, she’s joined by DC Ben Cooper (Robert James-Collier – Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale), leading to a scene making me wonder why would she want to come to this backwater, when she states there’d be six people sweeping the large house they’ve to check out, but here, there’s just two. It wouldn’t make sense to anyone.
Maybe she’s really just gone back in time to 1973, and no-one’s told her?
With a body found under the ground, mysterious payments in a bank account, corn dollies being buried (a spiritual thing for weird people)… by the time certain revelations came about, I was starting to drop off.
For a change, and without giving spoilers, I will say is that when I guessed one potential suspect as the killer, I was right! Alas, Cooper And Fry just follows all the usual clichés, though, which is disappointing.
There’s four episodes in this initial series, as they’re two hours each, but are they all as slow-paced as this? It’d fit well on afternoon TV for my mum when she was still with us, but I can’t see it winning the TV ratings at primetime.
Either that, or in 2035, it’ll be starting it’s 20th series. Roll your dice and bet now. Don’t underestimate the “cozy crime” wave. As one IMDB review for Murder Before Evensong I read included, “The murder in episode one is fairly incidental. Right now I’m watching because I’m agog to find out whether Stella Harper’s flower cupboard is going to be made into a loo!”
Thanks to our friends and Channel 5 for the screener prior to broadcast.
Cooper And Fry continues next Monday on Channel 5 at 9pm.
It’s not yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD, but when it is, it will be listed on the New DVD, Blu-ray, 3D and 4K releases UK page.
If you miss it when broadcast, you can watch the each episode after broadcast on My5.
Series Directors: Jesse Quinones, Ryan Tohill
Producers: Simon James Doyle, Ian Hunt-Duffy
Screenplay: Ben Court, Kit Lambert, Jeff Povey
Novel: Stephen Booth
Cast:
DC Ben Cooper: Robert James-Collier
DC Diane Fry: Mandip Gill
DI Paul Hitchens: Lorcan Cranitch
DS Todd Eland: Barry O’Connor
Dr Juliana Taylor: Clara Simpson
Tracy Garnett: Niamh McCann
Howard Runshaw: Mark Huberman
Maggie Crew: Natalie Britton
Emma Runshaw: Isabelle Harriet
Cara Doyle: Grace Collender
Nikolai Dudzik: Sergii Dzialyk
Alex Barcroft: Conor Hackett
Daniell Entwhistle: Emer Heatley
Raymond Carlisle: Eamon Rohan
Roy Palfreyman: Paul Tylak
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.