Fri 21 Aug 2009
A TV Series Review by Geoff Bradley: NEW TRICKS
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries1 Comment
NEW TRICKS. BBC. Season Five [eight episodes]: 07 July 2008 to 25 August 2008.
Last summer we had the fifth series (eight one-hour stories, no adverts) of this very popular programme. It has a nice set-up: a cold case team of three cynical ex-coppers (played by well know veteran actors Alun Armstrong, James Bolan and Denis Waterman) under the supervision of a female superintendent whose career has been sidelined (Amanda Redman).
The characters are good and the humour and camaraderie are well done, but unfortunately the plots are rather a let down. The humour is obviously paramount to the producers and the logic of the plot seems to be given little thought.
This is a pity as (as I’ve banged on about before) the pilot of this series was tremendous but, as often happens, the characterisation was sacrificed to promote the humour.
NOTES: Season Six is currently in progress, 16 July 2009 to 27 August 2009. Season One will be available on DVD next week in the US.
August 21st, 2009 at 4:59 pm
At the risk of seeming like a whining fan, I do feel that claiming that the plotting is not up to scratch is one of the more silly criticisms made about this series. I’ve seen them all so far, and it always seemed to me that NEW TRICKS generally has far higher standards of scripts generally than most 50 minute crime shows. It does fall between several different stools (puzzle plot/police procedural/drama/comedy) but it negotiates these very well.