Review of Wire In The Blood (Collector`s Box Set)

Introduction

More get-inside-the-mind-of-the-killer hijinks from ITV, with plenty of gruesome detail about the minutiae of murderous psychopathic rage for the easily bored closet sadist. Grandma’s favourite Robson Green plays fumbling genius nutcase-profiler Tony Hill, hired, on a disconcertingly regular basis by Detective Inspector Carol Jordan (Hermione Norris) to help ensnare a seemingly endless portfolio of serial-killers stalking a fictional English metropolis. In the first of three feature-length episodes included in this set, ‘Mermaids Singing’, Tony Hill is recruited to hunt down a sadist with a penchant for weird torture devices. Less macabre and more conventional police-procedural dynamics dominate ‘Shadows Rising’, a densely constructed mystery where two apparently incidental parallel storylines eventually converge. And finally ‘Justice Painted Blind’, the most satisfying installment (and, coincidentally, the tidiest exploiter of red-herrings and endless plot twists), follows a vengeful killer, methodically ‘deep-sixing’ jurors whose not guilty verdict set free a notorious paedophile.

Video

Disappointing. No widescreen and a grainy transfer. Better than video but better was expected from such a recent production.

Audio

Functional stereo. Perpetually annoying music by The Insects.

Features

Hopeless ‘interviews’ with Hermione Norris and Robson Green, and a slightly better one with writer Val McDiarmid who offers placating soundbites on everything from her childhood to her working methods. If you want to sift through further oddities like original scripts from the first episode and some trailers for such classic TV shows as ‘Crime Traveler’ then bung on the 1st disc, as discs two and three arrive sans extras.

Conclusion

Grimly compelling but stultifyingly conventional serial-killer thriller with some quirky characterizations and a propensity for ludicrous plot twists that just manage to sustain the attention. Fans of McDiarmid’s pulpy novels will probably warm to the convoluted whodunit narratives of ‘Shadows Rising’ and ‘Justice Painted Blind’, as well as the crude half-baked psychology and graphic violence present in the alarmingly linear and unsophisticated ‘Mermaids Singing’. The plots just about manage to juggle elements of plot and character with reliable consistency if not much significant development; most of the supporting cast remain peripheral and drained of personality, and Green sheds much of his eccentricities by the second installment.

What we have here is essentially another in a long line of serial-killer exploitation films, detailing the modus-operandi of fictional killers without any real examination or genuine insight into the mentality or germination of such individuals in society. Still, as a mainstream psycho-fantasist, McDiarmid is certainly adept with fast-moving, implausible narratives. Of the three stories, only ‘Mermaids Singing’ suffers from considerable drag, whilst ‘Shadows Rising’ contains a predictable plot revelation, ‘Justice Painted Blind’ is so bloated with false leads and red-herrings that it’s inconceivable one could grasp the denouement with any assurance.

Norris just about manages to break out of her irritating ‘Cold Feet’ persona, but she’s still too much of a China doll neurotic to convince as a hard-bitten DI. Green mumbles the preposterous psycho-babble with suitable aplomb, but his character never really finds a solid groove. It’s left largely up to the plots to keep character and pace in check, and in this regard the success is variable but above average. Whilst this is presumably fascinating stuff to the insatiable fans of sexual psychopaths everywhere, (and judging by McDiarmid’s book sales, there are plenty of them), it’s pretty much sheer time-wasting to everyone else.