James Walton

The wisdom of the crowd

Plus: a staggeringly pointless new documentary about Jack the Ripper on BBC1

issue 06 April 2019

On Sunday a drama began with ED905 being stolen by an OCG who’d faked an RTC that required IR, little realising that they had a UCO in their midst. So yes, Line of Duty (BBC1) is back in all its jargon-laden glory — and, judging from the first episode, it’s lost none of its ability to grip either.

For those a bit rusty on their police abbreviations, that opening scene featured the female member of an organised crime group pretending she’d crashed her car with a baby inside, causing the woman in charge of a passing police convoy to stop and help. The rest of the gang then appeared in regulation Line of Duty balaclavas, killed three officers and drove off with the lorry-load of heroin the police were escorting.

When the news reached the anti-corruption unit AC-12, the initial reaction of boss Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar) was naturally to give us his first ‘Mother of God!’ of the series.

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