Lynley… Inspector Lynley.
I never saw the drama with Nathaniel Parker and Sharon Small, around 20 years ago, nor have I read the books, so this new series is my first experience of the brand.
This time the roles are filled by Leo Suter (Vikings: Valhalla) and Sofia Barclay, the latter of whom was in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, but then so many people have been credited with a role in that, that if you look deep enough into the cast list, you’ll probably also find your own name in there, too!
No sooner have things begun, that DI Thomas Lynley and DS Barbara Havers are immediately signed up to the series’ first dead body, both of whom leave the cop shop and head out without a bag of any kind. I don’t go anywhere without my manbag, not least with a bottle of water!
Before too long, we learn how our lead DI and boss DCI Brian Nies (Daniel Mays – The Thursday Murder Club) have been at loggerheads before, when they were both in London. Can they work together, now? Well, you’ll soon find yourself struggling to care.
Nies just seems to have come up from London to East Anglia to piss his underling off, and there’s the typical trope for the two leads as a mismatched pairing, as well as being mixed-race casting – him, a posh, white bloke, and her, a young, Indian woman, getting 2026 off to a diverse start! Well, it technically aired in 2025, as the US showed it in September, this year, where Britbox is apparently still a thing.
All the usual TV drama clichés are here, such as chancing upon a laptop that might hold some clues, but just so happens to not be password-protected; there might be a surprise beneficiary of the deceased’s estate, and one character even has a laptop that’s so old, it comes with a DVD player. I guess that individual has DVD fever?
I know cozy crime is all the rage, but this bored me to tears. To be fair, I wasn’t expecting anything else, but this pair have absolutely zero chemistry, they also go off on a wander whenever they get even a slight tip-off – even causing the bloke to abandon making a drink to go and question someone – not exactly rushing off, but sauntering over to his car; and Ms Barclay mumbles her words.
There’s even a ridiculous chase across a boggy marsh, which is going to run the bloke’s suit.
Lynley 2026 (or 2025, perhaps) just seems to be 75 minutes of walking about before the writers finally get to the point, and the cops work out whodunit. It wasn’t who I expected, but then I still wasn’t fussed. Leo Suter’s acting is the human equivalent of mogadon.
I watched this from the US broadcast.
Lynley begins on Monday January 5th on BBC1 at 8.30pm. It’s available to pre-order on DVD.
Once broadcast, the episodes will be on BBC iPlayer.
Director: Ed Bazalgette
Writers: Elizabeth George, Steve Thompson
Cast:
DI Thomas Lynley: Leo Suter
DS Barbara Havers: Sofia Barclay
Adrian Brouard: Mark Field
Carmel Brouard: Gillian Saker
Cynthia Layton: Eloise Thomas
Sofia Cullen: Nadia Parkes
DCI Brian Nies: Daniel Mays
Valerie Layton: Amanda Drew
DC Tony Bekele: Michael Workeye
Paul Chandler: Angus Cooper
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.