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Karen Pirie is a new cop drama on ITV, which really breaks the mould because… it’s been about five minutes since the last one, Ridley(!)
The opening episode looks at the unsolved murder of a barmaid in 1996, Rosie Duff (Anna Russell-Martin), but for our lead, we first see Karen (Lauren Lyle – Vigil) on a job where he cop partner Phil (Zach Wyatt) gets puked on by someone in the house they have to visit, leading to the old cliche of the protaganist cop and their partner fancying each other.
However, for her next case, she has a new partner, James Murray (Chris Jenks), and this leads to her investigating what happened to Rosie, also taking in Bel Richmond (Rakhee Thakrar – Rules Of The Game, The Girl Before), who presents a true crime podcast.
When it comes to Rosie’s death, three men were arrested for the murder – even though they claim they had just found her. Bel’s looking into them in the present day, detailing their current professions and speculating on what they might be up to now, one of which has zero social media presence, and so is hard to track down. Along the way, Karen interviews them, and the script also goes back and forth between then and now.
So, that’s the scene set and I obviously won’t spoil who did the deed, but while I’ve never read Val McDermid‘s Karen Pirie books and so I don’t know how they compare, what I do know is that for the TV adaptation, the plot, direction and pacing is leaden in this; and the acting is perfunctory.
I can’t see a single individual who’s putting in any effort. I know it’s sleepy Sunday evening 8pm fare, but I will not be watching further episodes.
One thing I will say about this programme, which is NOT a spoiler, but I will hide it behind a spoiler header…
Karen Pirie continues next Sunday on ITV at 8pm. It’s available to pre-order on DVD, ahead of the release date of October 10th.
After each episode is broadcast, they will be on the ITV Hub.
Director: Gareth Bryn
Producers: Huw Kennair-Jones, Clare Kerr
Novels: Val McDermid
Writer: Emer Kenny
Music: Stephanie Taylor
Cast:
DS Karen Pirie: Lauren Lyle
River Wilde: Emer Kenny
Janice Hogg: Gemma McElhinney
DS Jimmy Lawson: Kevin Mains
Rosie Duff: Anna Russell-Martin
Professor Keen: Barrie Hunter
Colin Duff: Daniel Portman
CS James Lawson: Stuart Bowman
Bel Richmond: Rakhee Thakrar
Paul: Gary Lamont
Tom ‘Weird’ Mackie: Jack Hesketh
Ziggy Snr: Alec Newman
Simon Lees: Steve John Shepherd
Rob Driscoll: Bhav Joshi
Jason Murray: Chris Jenks
Lynn Mackie: Marnie Baxter
Grace Galloway: Bobby Rainsbury
Alex Gilbey: Buom Tihngang
Sarah: Kim Allan
DS Phil Parhatka: Zach Wyatt
Ziggy Malkiewicz: Jhon Lumsden
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.