Mon 23 May 2011
A TV Review by Geoff Bradley: IDENTITY “Second Life” (2010).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[2] Comments
IDENTITY. “Second Life.” 28 April 2010. (Season 1, Episode 1.) ITV [UK]. Aidan Gillen, Keeley Hawes, Holly Aird, Elyes Gabel, Shaun Parkes, John Hopkins, Patrick Baladi. Creator/writer: Ed Whitmore. Director: Brendan Maher.
This was a six part series (one hour each, less adverts) based in a unit set up to combat identity theft. Detective Superintendent Martha Lawson (played by Keeley Hawes, fresh from Ashes to Ashes) is in charge and her leading detective, newly returned from a 15-year (yes, 15 year) undercover assignment is D.I. John Bloom (played by Aidan Gillen, fresh from The Wire, but here regaining his Irish accent). Bloom is quiet moody and enigmatic, but his contributions are, of course, the most telling.
The series, though, is clearly going for big time transgressions. This first episode starts with a man who has shot a policeman from his bedroom window when they have been sent to arrest him after the car he had leased is used to kill a woman. He is, he pleads, after being shot by a police marksman, the victim of identity theft.
Soon the unit has three linked cases, all involving murder, with an innocent man being gaoled. However, Bloom decides, the culprit is deliberately revealing his actions. But why?
Like a lot of current programmes, this held the interest with a complex and intriguing story. Unfortunately the denouement, which I won’t go into, did little to sort out how it had all been achieved. Of course the perpetrator was a computer geek, but we have to take as read how he could have achieved his nefarious objectives and managed to maintain the lifestyle he had.
Entertaining but don’t expect it to make sense.
May 24th, 2011 at 6:15 am
I’m not sure how Keeley Hawes became the latest “flavo[u]r of the month” in Britain – she also starred in the weak remake of UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS (no comma), but I’m not a big fan. ASHES TO ASHES was a waste of time and the way she was dressed was embarrassing.
May 25th, 2011 at 8:39 pm
I have missed ASHES TO ASHES so far, though not deliberately, so Keeley Hawes and how she dressed is something I know very little about. I do remember reading that the ending of ASHES TO ASHES left a lot to be desired, as far as explaining everything, with no loose ends left behind — or am I thinking of another series?