Wed 5 Feb 2020
TV Episode Review: THE CORONER “First Love” (2015).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[5] Comments
THE CORONER “First Love.” BBC, UK. 60 minutes. 16 November 2015 (Season 1, Episode 1.) Claire Goose as Jane Kennedy, Coroner, Matt Bardock as Davey Higgins, Detective Sergeant, Grace Hogg-Robinson as Beth Kennedy, Jane’s daughter. Director: Ian Barber.
The story in this first episode is better than average, but as the first episode, it fails badly in introducing the players. A synopsis on IMDb helps:
“Following the failure of a relationship high-flying solicitor Jane Kennedy returns to the small Devon coastal town of Lighthaven, that she left when she was a teenager. She takes up the position of coroner investigating sudden, violent and suspicious deaths. Jane moves back, with her teenage daughter Beth to live with her mother. In her new role Jane must work alongside Davey Higgins, the boy who once broke her heart, who is now the local Detective Sergeant.”
There are just the beginning of hints at all this in the episode itself. We don’t get a clear statement as to why Jane Kennedy has moved back to her home town, only that she has, nor what her relationship withe Davey Higgins is and/or was. They are working together, she as the local coroner (and how does it happen she has the job so quickly?), he as a local police office, and (for the most part) comfortably so.
The mother-daughter relationship, on the other hand, is obviously prickly. There is a lot of that going around. See Dicte, the first episode of which, from 2013, was reviewed here. In fact, the story line is very much the same. Young girl falls for an iffy guy from a faster crowd than her mother wants her to be anywhere near.
The boy friend in this episode happens to have been the best friend of another young boy who is suspected of committing suicide by jumping off a high stone tower. It is possible, however, that he may have been pushed, and it is up to Jane and Davey to check into it before Jane can prepare her final report.
In spite of the strong sense of déjà vu on my part, which arose only by the sheer chance of seeing the first episodes of both series so close together, the story itself is well done. This is another series I can see myself spending more time with (streaming now on Britbox.)
February 6th, 2020 at 6:28 pm
I watched a few episodes of this on Britbox and it’s very competently done and the main characters were appealing, but I didn’t find it as engaging as I might have liked. I have a pet theory that you can’t really record a good whodunnit in 45-60 minutes–you really need the 90 minute length.
February 6th, 2020 at 7:46 pm
I certainly can’t say how this series will hold up for me after only watching the one, but there are series that I do give up on without even finishing up even one full episode. (You don’t hear about them here.)
As for 90 minute mystery episodes, I think for far too long, network TV writers and producers have thought American audiences could not follow a story for that long.
February 8th, 2020 at 7:05 pm
Some of the hour long episodes on British television don’t feel all that different than their American counterparts, a bit too pat sometimes.
The longer episodes do seem to give a bit of room to develop plot and character a bit, though as Steve says American producers don’t trust the audience and hate the mess it makes of ad sales and the three hour prime time model audiences are used to.
People complain bitterly if an episode runs over the one hour slot because their DVR’s miss it.
February 29th, 2020 at 7:26 pm
I’ve now watched the second episode, entitles “How to Catch a Lobster,” and I don’t see anything but a friendly professional relationship between the two leading characters. No hint of anything more than that in their past, either, nor did I find the mystery, about fishing an unidentifiable body out of the sea, all that interesting.
“Adequate,” which is what it is, just isn’t enough when there are so many other shows to watch. I’ll try one more, I think, but that may be all.
September 4th, 2022 at 11:52 am
[…] country (Dicte, Denmark, and The Coroner, UK), and another divorced woman trying to make a go of it on her own in her chosen profession, all […]