Dour and dark with little realism as a program. Helen Mirren is a very fine actor but does not seem comfortable in this role. Her character is not a likable or even realistic person, and if the idea is to have some kind of gender message it fails as her character becomes worse than the blokey guys she takes over from.Real shame.

There is little that needs to be added to the other highly appreciative reviews already posted on this site.The first Prime Suspect was a landmark in British TV drama. It had all the virtues of a good mystery thriller but was enriched by a densely-researched exposition of police procedure and closely observed characterisation. The cast and their performances are all outstanding. There had been nothing quite like it on British TV before.I am pleased to see that its merits are widely recognised wherever it has been shown, but I also note that there is a tendency to use it as a stick with which to beat American TV. I would only point out that this gritty approach to the cop genre was actually pioneered in America - particularly with Hill Street Blues. I suspect it was the success of that show that encouraged ATV to go ahead with this gruelling series. Without it, Lynda La Plant may never have been able to get Prime Suspect off the ground.It has one big advantage over similar American shows (before and since). It is a stand-alone serial. Free from the requirement to fill a 22 week season, it could be written by one person and tell a single coherent story over three and a half hours. Even the best US shows eventually suffer from multiple writers and directors trying to maintain a consistent vision that is ultimately not their own. Even a show as good as The Sopranos succumbed to the flattening effect of this conveyor belt approach to drama.This is equally true of Prime Suspect. Subsequent series had their merits and were consistently above average for TV drama, but ultimately they were all just sequels. As so often happens, they tried to replicate the success of the original series by simply ringing a few changes on all the elements that were once such a fresh and original mix.It is we who are to blame. When we see something we like, we greedily demand more and more, so the virtues of the original show soon get overwhelmed and diluted by the increasingly desperate attempts of the film-makers to make something that is seemingly different while being exactly the same.I doubt if there is more than handful of sequels in the whole history of cinema and TV that are truly better than the shows that gave them their inspiration.Prime Suspect Two, Three, Four etc. are not amongst them.

Watching Prime Suspect again makes me realize and appreciate every episode. Dame Helen Mirren is always worth watching whether Prime Suspect or anything else. Her role of Jane Tennison will go down in history as one of the best female roles ever written and acted by this wonderful dame. The writing is superior to anything else on television. More than ten years after its first showing in America, Prime Suspect is classic television. The series itself has also some award winning performances by Zoe Wanamaker as the unsuspecting wife of a serial killer. Even though we suspect it, it is fascinating to unravel the mystery. When we see the female corpses, it is a gruesome look into reality. For us, it is entertainment. In the real world, they are somebody's daughter and the killer is inhuman. When we finally solve the mystery in this addition, we will have more questions and answers. The biggest question is why does this happen to begin with.

"Prime Suspect" is a dark, sometimes cynical, sometimes inspiring, always disturbing series. I watched most of the series on PBS a few summers back, and found myself instantly hooked. Helen Mirren is simply one of the best actresses alive today. It's a police drama with little on camera violence and true human emotion; you'd be hard pressed to find such a series on American television.