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Granite Harbour has a premise where Lance Corporal Davis Lindo (Romaria Simpson) is now working at Police Scotland, since following the end of his final tour with the Royal Military Police, he wanted to work as a Detective Constable – albeit not in Jamaica, and has ended up here with an overly impressive resume.
Partnered with ‘Bart’, aka DS Lara Bartlett (Hannah Donaldson), it’s a fish-out-of-water story, and despite his current lot, he still wants to impress his family back home, as well as the new place of work, such that even though he doesn’t start until Monday, he arrives on Friday to introduce himself, and the next day, just orders whatever’s recommended in the cafe, and is surprised by a Full English Breakfast.
Plus, following a protest from a bunch of Just Stop Oil-type protestors, as two companies are merging, which leads to one of two brothers in a company turning up brown bread, Lindo lacks any tact when it comes to making accusations against surviving sibling Shay Coburn (Gary Lewis – The Vanishing), and with his stilted dialogue, it’s like seeing any bad ’80s comedy with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Similarly, he’s also heavy-handed with his behaviour, continuing the Arnie-style.
Add in several clichés, such as meeting the DI, Jay Malick (Bhav Joshi – Karen Pirie), who’s a grumpy/sarcastic cardboard cut-out-type baddie, and another where the female boss – DCI Cora MacMillan (Dawn Steele) – rolls in with a hangover, even though it’s Monday. Plus, smehow, the police have a huge touchscreen for evidence, as if any station could afford such a device!
Along the way in the opener, they talk to several people – seeing who had motive, but it’s all so pedestrian, just like any other detective drama that’s gone before; and at one point, Lindo plays the new guy who goes off a hunch.
It also ends on a cliffhanger for which I couldn’t give the slightest toss about, and quite frankly, if the character last heard had done the obvious thing, there wouldn’t be a problem!
As they might say in Scotland (and I certainly say in Manchester), Granite Harbour is… shite.
Granite Harbour begins on BBC1 Scotland on Thursday December 1st at 9pm, and is on BBC1 elsewhere on Friday at 7pm, and will be available to watch after broadcast on the BBC iPlayer. It’s a 3-parter, so I expect all three will be online once the first weekly episode has been broadcast. It’s not yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD.
Director: Gary Williams
Producer: Donna Molloy
Writers: Sarah Deane, Tara Hepburn, Adriel Leff
DC Davis Lindo: Romaria Simpson
DS Lara Bartlett: Hannah Donaldson
DCI Cora MacMillan: Dawn Steele
DI Jay Malick: Bhav Joshi
Sandy Hepburn: Hiftu Quasem
Rory Dashford: Andrew Still
Clellan Coburn: Ron Donachie
Karolina Andersen: Katia Winter
Shay Coburn: Gary Lewis
Desk Sgt Belinda Everett: Sophia McLean
PC George Bowden: Ewan Somers
DS Simone ‘Monty’ Montrose: Michelle Jeram
Ewan MaClure: Ross Anderson
Annie Farquhar: Lisa Livingstone
Hannah Coutts: Caroline Deyga
Isla Breck: Fiona Bell
Coach Driver: Colin McGregor
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.