Prime Suspect
Prime Suspect is a highly-acclaimed
Granada Television police procedural television drama series of the decades of the
1990s and
2000s, which has been followed up by several sequels. The screenplays of the first three mini-series were written by
Lynda La Plante.
Helen Mirren plays Jane Tennison, a hard-bitten female
detective (
DCI)—and starting in the third mini-series, Detective Superintendent—in a male-dominated profession in this crime series. The character was said to be based on
Jackie Malton, who acted as an advisor to the authors.
The programme was part of a trend for programmes/films with women in both leading roles, and holding senior authority positions. One UK television example is
M.I.T., a spin off from
The Bill on
ITV. The series may have antecedants in such dramas as
Silence of the Lambs (female central character and serial killer plotline) and in
Juliet Bravo (UK police procedural with female leads).
The first series features sexism in the workplace as a significant subplot, and as a barrier to the investigation. Sequels tend to underplay this, relying on straight procedure or on other subplots (institutional racism in
Prime Suspect 2, work/life balance as a recurring theme).
Prime Suspect's format amounts to a series of
miniseries: each case runs for several nights of two hours. In the 1990s, five such mini-series each completed a case.
Prime Suspect 6 broadcasts began in the
United States on
April 18,
2004, and Mirren has said she expects to make the seventh her last.
*
Prime Suspect (1991)
*
Prime Suspect 2 (1992)
** 4 1-hour episodes
*
Prime Suspect 3 (1993)
*
Prime Suspect 4 (1995)
**
The Lost Child**
Inner Circles**
Scent of Darkness*
Prime Suspect 5: Errors of Judgment (1996)
*
Prime Suspect 6: The Last Witness (2003)
** 2 2-hour episodes
* Prime Suspect 7 : The Final Chapter
**2 2 hour Episodes)
In
1995 a short spoof episode,
Prime Cracker, was produced for the
BBC's bi-annual
Red Nose Day charity
telethon in aid of
Comic Relief. A crossover with ITV stablemate crime drama
Cracker, the spoof starred Mirren and
Cracker lead
Robbie Coltrane as their characters from the respective series, sending-up the perceived ultra seriousness of both shows.
*
Baftagate*
Prime Suspect at the
MBC Encyclopedia of Television
*
British Film Institute Screen Online
