[Omah]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-rad...iley-tv-review

Denmark gives us The Killing, crime drama that sucks you in like a whirlpool with a mesmeric, complicated lady cop who takes no **** from no one. Out of France comes Spiral, also super gritty and absorbing, with another fabulous strong female lead. And what do we do? Scott & Bailey (ITV1, Sunday).

DS Rachel Bailey thinks she's about to be proposed to by boyfriend Nick at the restaurant. Oh, he dumps her instead. She storms out, has a few glasses of wine, gets cross, and turns up at his flat later, wanting answers.

"How did you get inside the building?" he asks.

"I'm a detective," says Bailey. Good enough to get into a building, not good enough to realise that her boyfriend of two years, on the verge of becoming her fiance, she thought, is actually a love rat, happily married with a bloody great house in the country and teenage kids. Were there not some clues along the way – the fact that she only saw him once a week perhaps, never met his friends or family, wasn't allowed anywhere near his work, Christmas, summer holidays? I'm finding it hard to take DS Bailey very seriously as a detective. Or Scott & Bailey as a detective drama.

And it's not just that. It's the way the crime they're investigating almost perfectly mirrors Bailey's own personal life. Gokhan, the Turkish guy, is a love rat with a girlfriend but also a wife at home – well, until she's found hanging by a cord in the bedroom. So although DS Bailey is first distracted by events in her life, it then gives her a better understanding of what's going on with the murder, and an extra impetus (albeit the slightly misguided impetus of a woman who's been cheated on). That's silly, isn't it? Trying to be a bit clever probably, but it ends up clunky as hell.