Skip to content
Suspect centres around cop Danny Frater (James Nesbitt – Bloodlands), who attends the mortuary in a hospital, expecting a standard case of identifying a victim, only to discover the young woman on the table is Christina (Imogen King – The Bay), his daughter.
That’s the basics for this drama, but I’ll give no spoilers in my review.
I knew from this that there’s a stack of famous faces in it, but Suspect does bring a format that I don’t recall seeing before. Split into eight 30-minute episodes, each one sees him either intentionally visiting or chancing across one single individual who he hopes will hold the key to some information which will help solve her murder. That’s if she was murdered, and didn’t take her own life. But then he’s convinced the situation would have to be the former, because he can’t believe she would end it all.
For the opener, it’s pathologist Jackie (Joely Richardson) at the morgue, and next, he chances across the mysterious Nicola (Niamh Algar – Deceit), and on it goes, with each episode largely bathed in one individual colour.
It doesn’t take Danny long to realise there’s so much he doesn’t know about his daughter… Whenever he thinks he’s got some answers, it often just brings up more questions. Will he ever get the explanation he needs? Well, this should provide a lot of intrigue, but Suspect comes across rather too slow, and dishes out the plot in very piecemeal fashion, which doesn’t make it particularly easy to get into.
Given the set decoration, this is clearly stylishly filmed, but I’m not gripped by it. However, I’ll stick with it to see how it plays out.
At the time of posting the review, I’ve seen four of the eight episodes. The final one wasn’t available, so I didn’t want to get so far that I was chomping at the bit to wait for the finale, although all episodes are available after the first one is broadcast, so either way, you won’t have too long to wait.
Suspect begins on Channel 4 on Sunday June 19th at 9pm, after which, the entire series will be on All 4. It’s on four consecutive nights for an hour each time.
The series is not yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD.
Director: Dries Vos
Producer: Ed King
Screenplay: Matt Baker
Music: Stefano Cabrera
Cast:
Danny Frater: James Nesbitt
Jackie: Joely Richardson
Richard: Ben Miller
Christina: Imogen King
Nicola: Niamh Algar
Maria: Antonia Thomas
Jasail: Sacha Dhawan
Harry: Richard E Grant
Police Officer 1: Hannah Hoad
Annie: Adele Marie
Stunt performer: Hannah Storm
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.