TV Crime Log: Walking, Talking, Tunnel, Revolution & Arrow

Talking To The Dead is a two-part adaptation of Harry Bingham’s crime novel, which is being shown under Sky’s Drama Matters banner. It stars Sophie Rundle as DC Fiona Griffiths, whose mental illness gives her an extraordinary empathy with the dead. There she is in that photo, touching some glass to show how empathetic she is.

Here’s some blurb to enlighten you further:

When a prostitute and her young daughter are found brutally murdered on her first day with Cardiff’s Major Crime Unit, DC Fiona Griffiths is desperate to be involved in the case. Under the watchful eye of DCI Owen Jackson, Fiona finds her investigations frustratingly limited to following the paper trail of a bank card found at the crime scene, registered to a local shipping tycoon who mysteriously died in the Severn Estuary nine years ago.

This is not the first time Fiona has uncovered dark secrets in the detritus of people’s everyday lives and an overlapping embezzlement investigation into a corrupt ex-cop, Penry, adds to her work load.

However, the highly committed and potentially brilliant Fiona is compelled to take matters in her own hands. Working alongside respected Detective Sergeant Huw Brydon, the rookie cop must take care not to ruffle feathers as she surreptitiously pursues leads. As she delves deeper into the investigation Fiona’s obsession with the crime increasingly draws out her own personal and professional demons leading her to question whether she really is as cured of her condition as she previously thought.

You can see the first episode of Talking To The Dead on Sky Living at 9pm tomorrow night - that’s Tuesday—and the second episode on Thursday night. I guess Drama Matters is a showcase of sorts, so if Talking To The Dead does well we may get a full series.

And here’s another British show, kinda, this one on Sky Atlantic. The Tunnel is an adaptation of the Danish-Swedish coproduction The Bridge, which follows a joint police investigation into the discovery of a dead body severed right in the middle of the bridge connecting those two countries. Shown already on BBC4, and a hell of a lot more fun than The Killing, The Bridge starred Sofia Helin as Saga, the lead homicide detective, a lady somewhere along the spectrum, and Kim Bodnia as Martin Rohde.

This adaptation is set beneath the Channel. You can imagine all those TV executives scratching their heads on how to adapt it until one jumped up and said: ‘Wait, we’ve got a tunnel!’ And imagine their delight when they realized they could cast a hot French actress.

The Bridge has been adapted by Kudos, who have a decent track record at this kind of thing, and stars Stephen Dillane and Clemence Poesy. Let’s hope there’s some variation in the plot to keep those of us who watched the original from getting a terrible sense of deja vu.

There’s also another version of The Bridge out there, set on the US-Mexican border. That, like the original, is going to a second series.

Anyway, the first of 10-episodes of The Tunnel is on Sky Atlantic on Wednesday night at 9pm.

The Walking Dead returns on Friday night at 10pm. It’s a case of another day another showrunner, for The Walking Dead. But the first episode is apparently very good, and set in that prison. That big, ugly prison. With the vanquished Governor ready to return at any time with some semi-automatic gunfire, you’d think they’d continue to live in Woodbury, with that nice plaza, but no, they’ve gone for the brutalist concrete look.

Anyway, everyone’s back, but the cast-list was bulging alarmingly at the end of the last season, so don’t expect everyone to make it through to the end of the series.

With the last season of The Walking Dead easily out-performing anything on the big three US networks, plans have been announced for a spin-off show, so look out for that in the next couple of years or so.

The Walking Dead is on FX at 10pm on Friday night.

These days, crossbows are de rigeur for the modern televisual adventurer. That fellow in The Walking Dead has one slung over his back, and you can find plenty more of them in the second series of Revolution.

It features one of those versions of a post-apocalyptic future – a world without electrical power – in which everyone runs around in Gap tee-shirts and khakis. Revolution stars him who was in that thing, him from that other thing and her from every damned thing. And look, it’s on Sky1 on Sunday night, at 10pm. Oh dear, BBC and ITV, you had better pull your finger out.

And, gosh, there are more bow and arrows in, yes, Arrow. It’s about that guy from the comics with the bow and arrow. I lasted about five minutes on that one. That’s him to the left, in a very uncomfortable squat. The second series of Arrow is on next week. Oh, look, in a bid to shoehorn in one last bow and arrow reference I’ve got way ahead of myself and am now stranded in next Monday at 8pm.