Undemandingly enjoyable (just don’t read the episode’s title): McDonald & Dodds review

Well, this a bit awkward. A fortnight ago, in my last TV column, I confidently asserted that, despite the involvement of Jed Mercurio, Bloodlands (BBC1) was nothing like the programme it was being compared to in all the advance publicity. Two episodes, several twists and at least one bent copper later, my ringing conclusion ‘Just don’t expect Line of Duty’ feels somewhere between premature and spectacularly wrong.

Luckily, this is not a mistake anybody could make about Bloodlands’ Sunday night crime rival, McDonald & Dodds, which has been building up a solid following on ITV. The central idea it depends on is, like that of many a cop show before it, two mismatched detectives. Lauren McDonald (Tala Gouveia) is an ambitious officer of colour recently moved from south London to Bath — a city whose gentility is constantly emphasised amid all the murders. There, she’s paired with underling DS Dodds (Jason Watkins), who may or may not have a first name, but is certainly equipped with a full range of middle-aged male signifiers: among them specs on a chain, a deep interest in the history of railways and the inability to understand any word coined after about 1980.