Line of Duty - TV review

This series had me gripped from the moment it exploded onto our screens a few weeks ago.

It has attracted some of BBC Two's highest viewing figures of the past decade and is being tipped to scoop a host of awards.

In episode one's opening sequence, our attention was grabbed immediately as we saw an innocent father shot dead by police while holding his baby in a botched anti-terrorism operation.

From that moment on, the five episodes have taken viewers on a roller coaster ride through the murky world of police corruption, dodgy business dealings, drugs, murders and grisly finger-amputations, all set against the backdrop of some familiar scenes as the whole thing was filmed in and around Birmingham.

Never again will I be able to drive past the fire station building at Lancaster Circus Queensway without thinking of freezers, dead bodies and bloodied bolt cutters.

Through the journey we have admittedly had to suspend our belief a little, to account for unlikely plot elements like why central character DCI Tony Gates doesn't just smash the glass that puts him at the scene of the murder of his mistress Jackie Laverty, instead putting it in the police station dishwasher, and how he recovered so quickly from a bash to the head that rendered him unable to move as Jackie was slain in her hallway.

However these little transgressions were forgiven as we watched, eager to see how the web linking Jackie, Gates and his colleagues and Tommy, the man behind the voice on the end of the mobile phone given to Gates by sinister BMX-rider Ryan, would be unravelled.

Last night's conclusion did not disappoint. Equally as explosive and shocking as the first episode, if not more so, it started with young thug Ryan (played, possibly a little too convincingly by 14-year-old Gregory Piper, of Dudley) trying to amputate the fingers of anti-corruption officer DS Steve Arnott.

Gates, despite being under investigation for corruption himself, rescues him, handcuffing Ryan to a drainpipe before he leaves and starts the chain of events which would lead to the downfall of Tommy. Or so we are led to believe.

We then see Gates go to ground, trying to escape Tommy's henchmen and the officers out to get him for laddering offences, or inventing crimes to make his own detection rate look better than it is.

We see his fears for his family escalate as he finds the family dog mutilated at home and watch as he tells his wife of his affair, to protect her and their daughters. Having started off initially disliking his swaggering, arrogant character, in his fall from grace it was easy to find sympathy for a man who, despite his flaws, tries to do what he can to protect those he loves.

Finally, we see Gates tracking Tommy via his mobile phone, finally coming face-to-face with him on a golf course. He gets him to admit to his involvement in the murders then stops on a busy road where, unable to bear the possibility that he is as "bent" as young Ryan and Tommy keep telling him he is, he steps out into the path of a lorry, but not before ensuring DS Arnott will make sure it goes down on record as being death in the "Line of Duty" so his family get a payout.

Cue silence on screen and silence in the living room as the realisation of the true meaning of the title hit home.

In the final few moments we see Gates' colleague, known as Dot, speaking to Tommy in private. It's always the quiet ones, as the saying goes, but I, for one, never suspected the unassuming Dot to be involved. He tells Tommy how to wriggle out of any charges and indeed he does.

The helpful notes at the end of the programme inform us of this and, unlike other similar shows that sometimes end with an annoying cliffhanger, helped to wrap up all the loose ends.

Except perhaps the mystery of where that extra glass at the station came from.

Sally-Anne Youll