TV REVIEW: Criminal: UK

My company has recently set up Slack as a communication tool for everyone in technology to share. Those who work in a Digital or Tech functional will probably be familiar with it. It’s a great tool for communicating about work related things but it also has the added side benefit of often sparking up non-work related channels. One such channel in our Slack workspace is a TV and film recommendation channel where I found out about Criminal.

Criminal is a three part series focusing on one distinct crime per episode and the officers questioning someone in connection with said crime. Each series focuses on a particular country and the techniques and procedures followed – the first being the UK.

The UK crimes include the rape and murder of a teenage girl, the poisoning of a middle-aged man and a missing truckload of illegal immigrants. As the detectives fight the clock to get the suspect to give up the the information they need, power games and personal relationships are going on behind the mirrored screen.

Mr O and I were absolutely hooked on this from the word go. The fact that it’s played out in real time adds to the tension and watching the mind games that go one between the questioner and questionee are fascinating. While the crimes in question are all dark and very interesting, in many ways the little snippets of what is going on between the detectives is even more compelling. Although their interactions are fairly limited, the amount of information comes across is a testament to how well the episodes are constructed.

The UK version features some famous faces with one suspect being played by David Tennant and another by Hayley Atwell. Some of the detectives are also veterans of UK crime TV circuit, which makes for outstanding performances.

I can highly recommend Criminal and because its limited to three episodes you can wolf it all down pretty quickly without a massive investment.

4/5