SINGLE-HANDED
EVERY new police drama, serious or lightweight, needs a unique selling point – the veteran copper angle of New Tricks, for example, or the nostalgia of Heartbeat, or the time-travel twist of Ashes To Ashes, or the comedy accent of Inspector George Gently.
With this new three-parter, it’s the fact that Jack Driscoll (Owen McDonnell), a sergeant with the Irish police, has an enormous patch.
Not in a Pudsey Bear sense (although that may be a gimmick worth keeping in mind for a future series) but in that he polices a vast rural area, mostly without any back-up. Hence the title.
To be fair, this isn’t one of those cutesy Sunday night efforts packed with cringe-making stereotypes, but a decent attempt to portray a world with its own set of values.