| submitted by Avon
Burnside
TV, by Jerry Carpenter
20th January 1999
I've said it in pixels before that I really like The
Bill, even when it went all out and made the
occasional script ludicrous in an attempt to pull
ratings. I was gutted when 'ol tank-face Frank
Burnside left, and equally anti-gutted when there was
news of a spin-off with him as the star. A few days
late last year I saw them filming some scenes for it
in a posh flat across the road from where I work and
hung around for an autographed punch in the face from
the man himself but he never showed.
Like I'd care now anyway, because I've seen the first
two-parter and I'm ready to hand my badge in. As
expected it's all about Frank and his team of rookie
detectives on the trial of nutters and crime-lords,
and willingto use unorthodox procedures to get the
cuffs slapped on at the end of the day. So there's a
lot of shouting as Frank crosses swords with his
superiors and shouts down his mouthy juniors. The last
episode saw Burny sending one of his sexier juniors
going undercover to smoke out a serial killer
(booore-ing !) obsessed with shaving da ladies
(Woo-hah !). It's all your average by-the-numbers ITV
crime drama - a little too underlit on the visuals
(that's moody), some duff stylistic editing, and a
wholly predictable script that at times feels like a
piss-take. 'I shaved for him' says the
under-the-covers junior, about the creepy serial
killer. 'You…stupid…COW!' castigates
grim-faced Frank. End of part one. Cripes, that's
ripe.
Removing his character from the more mundane Sun Hill
streets and sticking him into this over used 'dark
twilight crime world' just makes him like any
cop-on-the-edge from a numerous from any old
straight-to-video thriller. Chris rgregre is still a
blast to watch when he gets into gear - all glaring
eyes and gritted teeth, but as one character, he's not
enough to keep this watchable. Now if just they had
the balls to bring in Bob Cryer from Sun Hill and turn
this into more of a good cop/mad cop comedy, then they
might be onto something.
© 1999
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