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The Jetty is a four-part series starts on Monday, and presumably will be on iPlayer in full from day one, but as soon as I saw it listed on the BBC’s Youtube community tab with an image of Jenna Coleman (Jackdaw) in the lead role of Ember, I commented: “I wonder if she is a cop with a complicated home life?”
A slew of great replies followed, including “Probably an alcoholic. Certainly a maverick who doesn’t play by the rules but gets the job done. And those pen pushers at HQ can just do one.”
Living with her daughter, Hannah (Ruby Stokes – The Burning Girls), in the aftermath of her husband passing away, and in seeing Jenna wake up, thinking there’s an intruder in the middle of the night, she waves a huge kitchen knife around in the dark, if I did that, I’d only end up doing myself a permanent, which would not be a good idea, given that I take warfarin!
As it’s a cop drama in the middle of nowhere, with bleak weather, Jenna wears a long coat – completely impractical when each environment is pretty grimy. However, she tries to distract by putting on a Yorkshire accent, as bad as that produced by Lily Collins in MaXXXine.
Still, someone’s burned out a building on a jetty, and every local resident in the nearby pub acts like they’ve got something to hide. Count the clichés…
Elsewhere in the plot, schoolgirl Amy (Bo Bragason – Censor, Three Girls) is a troublemaker, who also wears make-up in class, while keeping her skirt hitched up – even though the teachers would stamp all that out, quickly. Still, her rebelling helps lead friend Caitlin (Laura Marcus – The Great Escaper) off the right path.
However, there is one mystery: How come all the upstairs rooms in one of the houses has doors with opaque panels? That may be a thing for downstairs – lounge, kitchen and so on, but bedrooms and bathrooms?!
Overall, though, after just the opening episode, the sleepy town in The Jetty is so snoozy that it was making me drop off, and although all four episodes were available for review, I can’t see myself taking to more of this, unless it turns out to be the most raved about thing since sliced bread.
The Jetty begins on Monday on BBC1 at 9pm, and is on the next evening, followed by Monday and Tuesday the next week. It’s available to pre-order on DVD, ahead of its release date on August 12th 2024.
NOTE: As of Monday July 15th, every episode is on the BBC iPlayer.
Director: Marialy Rivas
Producer: Natasha Romaniuk
Writer: Cat Jones
Music: Christian Henson
Cast:
Ember: Jenna Coleman
Hannah: Ruby Stokes
Amy: Bo Bragason
Caitlin: Laura Marcus
Miranda: Shannon Watson
Malachy: Tom Glynn-Carney
Riz: Weruche Opia
Hitch: Archie Renaux
Rob: Philip Hill-Pearson
Arj: Matthew McNulty
Brad: Dominic Coleman
Liam: Arthur Hughes
Sheena: Georgina Rich
Ellis: Ross Thompson
Jules: Miya Ocego
Chloe: Nina Barker-Francis
Mrs Cawdor: Johanne Murdock
Lawley: Eleanor Nawal
Mr Ryan: Adam Astill
Nina: Natalie Gumede
Black: Peter Sullivan
Sylvia: Amelia Bullmore
Casey: David Ajala
Joan: Clare Calbraith
Nurse: Nandi Bhebhe
Martin: Rick Warden
Rosie: Niamh Blackshaw
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.