Over the past decade, Irish writer, producer, director, former RAF officer and medical doctor Jed Mercurio has become a powerhouse in UK television. Part of that status has come from the slow-burn success of his internationally acclaimed police-corruption thriller, Line of Duty (six seasons available on Britbox). It was further boosted by the gripping 2018 political thriller, Bodyguard (Netflix).
In 2016, Mercurio joined with Hat Trick Productions (Father Ted, Derry Girls) to establish HTM Television and interest has been understandably high about what he might achieve steering his own enterprise. HTM’s first series was Bloodlands (2021, SBS on Demand), starring James Nesbitt as a gritty Irish police detective investigating a kidnapping. The company also produced Conviction: The Case of Stephen Lawrence (Paramount+), the three-part dramatisation of the campaign by Doreen and Neville Lawrence to secure justice for their murdered son, aided by a dogged police detective (an impressively understated Steve Coogan). Late last year, HTM started production on the police drama DI Ray, starring Parminder Nagra.
Vicky McClure plays Lana “Wash” Washington, a bomb-squad copper and Afghanistan war veteran in Trigger Point.Credit:Stan
Given Mercurio’s reputation, when Trigger Point (Stan*) was announced, expectations were high. The six-part thriller sees Line of Duty stalwart Vicky McClure in a starring role as Lana “Wash” Washington, a London-based bomb disposal expert. It was quickly dubbed “Line of Bomb Duty”.
If only. For while Trigger Point contains many ingredients that, with Mercurio’s name on the credits as executive producer, might promise a winner, it’s a rare misfire.
Created and written by newcomer Daniel Brierley, the series lacks the rigor and complexity of Mercurio’s own work. His series are generally distinguished by taut, twisty plots packed with shocks. They consistently feature vivid, deftly drawn characters. And repeatedly woven into their crime stories are incisive examinations of the ways in which institutions function and fail to function.
It’s easy to understand why, when Mercurio offered McClure a starring role, she’d grab it. But she’s given little to work with here beyond a cliched outline. An Afghanistan war veteran, her Wash is clearly proficient at her work, but also damaged by it. As bombs explode and people die around her, she becomes obsessed with her failure to protect them and spends a lot of time stomping around looking as dark as her black T-shirts and work pants, banging on about her responsibility to keep people safe and her guilt about failing to do so. Determinedly tightening the mushroom ponytail sprouting atop her businesslike undercut to signal that she means business, she also drinks to excess to numb her grief.
Jed Mercurio’s productions include Bloodlands (left), Line of Duty (centre) and Bodyguard.
Wash is in a relationship with a police detective (Mark Stanley) and has a brother (Ewan Mitchell) who’s disconsolately dangling at a loose end. Then comes the complication of her involvement with a fellow war veteran (Warren Brown). This character information is delivered with broad-brush strokes, displaying none of the potency or subtlety that enriches the characters in, for example, Line of Duty.
Anyone who doesn’t pick what’s likely to happen by end of the first episode in the first 15 minutes isn’t paying attention. It’s sign-posted in the equivalent of flashing red warning signs. And when the architect of the chaos and the motive for it are eventually revealed, they’re flimsy and unconvincing. Meanwhile, the plot, which pivots on Wash and her anguish, is personalised to a literally unbelievable extent.
This is especially disappointing, as dramas with Mercurio’s name attached have previously been adept at situating their characters in pressured environments. It’s been a central component of his work since his early days in medical dramas (Cardiac Arrest, Bodies).
Trigger Point goes for spectacle and suspense, but lacks that kind of substance. It relies on busy action to propel it but the momentum is fitful. There are races to the scenes of possible attacks; discoveries of fiendishly elaborate bombs; clocks ticking down ominously; maybe a mercury-tilt device dangerously wobbling.
Vicki McClure and Adrian Lester in Trigger Point.Credit:HTM Television & All3Media International
The drama lurches between these supposedly suspenseful time-bomb scenes, which quickly become ho-hum, and dull meetings between stressed coppers in offices. They recount developments, which we already know, in dumps of flat expository dialogue. Then they don their flak jackets and helmets and rush out to the next attack site.
Given that the primary objective is the creation of suspense, the series is not particularly good at it. Think of the thrilling train sequence that set the scene and the tone in Bodyguard, a nail-biter which established the skill of the title character, David Budd (Richard Madden), and the kind of deadly enemy that he and his police colleagues might be facing. And made it persuasively personal. There’s nothing in Trigger Point that comes close.
Mercurio’s crime dramas frequently feature an element of historical crime: the pursuit of overdue justice or deep-seated revenge. It might be bad blood that’s simmered for years, or a cold case that’s reopened. In Bloodlands, the kidnapping revives the hunt for a possibly mythical assassin who emerged during the Troubles. In Bodyguard, Budd, a former soldier, is assigned to protect a hawkish government minister (Keeley Hawes). Given that he harbours resentment about the government’s treatment of the troops it sent to war, his intentions become suspect. Conviction is about an unsolved murder and an ageing detective driven from within to do his duty.
In Trigger Point, there are clear links between Wash’s military history and the unfolding action, but ultimately the way that they’re used seems tokenistic. Brierley throws a lot of ingredients into the mix – right-wing extremists, a possible Islamist terror cell, wartime trauma – but none is effectively deployed.
The series launched to 10 million viewers in the UK and became ITV’s highest rating drama this year. A second season has recently been announced. It’s affirmation for those involved, but I won’t be waiting for it with the excitement that preceded each season of Line of Duty.
* Stan is owned by Nine, the owner of this masthead.
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