What to say if you liked it

A drama of such complexity that viewers can feel really smug if they have a clue what’s going on

What to say if you disliked it

Rather be Walking The Dog

What was good about it?

• The guest appearance by Georgia Mackenzie as a detective on attachment from Kent. We so love this woman. The sooner she fronts her own series the better.

• Wil Johnson as the big, butch, brooding Spencer. Great muscles.

• The Boyd/Foley double act: Trevor Eve’s increasingly unhinged Boyd is hellish to work for but Sue Johnston’s motherly Grace Foley just about copes – although even she seems to be a bit fed up with Boyd’s foibles. The way they communicate – interrupting each other all the time – makes the working relationship seem very realistic.

• Boyd getting soppy about model planes, using them to explain the intricacies of the case

• Good use of a water tower where a gathering of predatory birds pecked at a dead body

• Grace’s mauve cardigan

• Lovely lighting, marvellous music.

What was bad about it?

• The disjointed storyline (involving poisonous medication, a Heathrow heist, shady Indians and handless corpses) means your attention cannot stray for a second which is not much use for those of us who have to make regular trips to the kitchen to grab a snack

• Boyd thinking he’s funny when he called a mummified body Crispy Duck

• It’s not as enjoyable as it used to be

• Esther Hall’s pathologist Felix, stuck in a moral maze and far too serious about everything.

• The flashbacks. Mel’s dead, move on. Watch Claire Goose’s career collapse like a ladder made out of a flan now she’s gone,

• Nobody asked the simple question: Why were the victim’s hands cut off? Come on Grace, you’re the psychologist. You should know!

• David Walliams in a minor role. Every time he appeared, we were half expecting an outburst of “I’m a lady.”