It proudly parades its lineup of A-listers, from Joely Richardson to Richard E Grant … but not even they (or Nesbitt’s wild scalpel-waving) can redeem this awfully cartoonish crime series
In Suspect (Channel 4), James Nesbitt plays a goofy detective caught up in a slapstick caper … oh stop it, of course he doesn’t. Nesbitt is Danny, a moody, troubled cop – married to the job, estranged from his family – who ends up unofficially investigating the murder of a close relative. This is a remake of a popular Danish noir series Forhøret, so it was never going to be a lighthearted romp, but it takes dedication to the dark side to make Nesbitt’s last outing as a troubled cop, Bloodlands, look upbeat.
There are two episodes per evening until it concludes on Wednesday. I was allowed to see seven of the eight, so if the big reveal turns this into one of the smartest crime series of all time, I can only apologise for being premature. It has a wintry chill so pronounced that I almost put on a jumper, so it seems odd to strip it across a warm week in June. Each short episode is a two-hander between Nesbitt and another actor, though occasionally others drop in for a minute or two. It is not dissimilar to the Netflix series Criminal, although that looked at one case per episode, rather than stringing one case out over the whole run.
