Silent Witness

I’ve just watched the concluding part of the first episode of ‘Silent Witness’. It’s a TV crime/pathology series, now in its 18th season. The present cast has Emilia Fox, David Caves, Liz Carr and Richard Lintern as the team who investigates what has happened to the bodies which are brought into the lab and the crime scenes they come from.

Over the years, as you may imagine the cast has changed considerably, and various believable and sometimes tragic reasons have been written into the plots to allow for this. However, the writing, acting, production has been consistently high… and having been on the edge of my seat during this current episode, so it continues.

I wrote recently about another favourite TV programme, ‘New Tricks’ which has also had major cast changes over recent series; however, I feel that somehow the life has gone out of the programme, somehow it has lost its way and lost its spirit… although the acting is still good, the situations and plots are weak, and some of the characters don’t ring true. I think it has run out of steam, lost its way and may sadly be past its sell-by date.

The same is not true of ‘Silent Witness’; however unlikely some of the crimes the viewer (well, this viewer!) is carried along by the pace and production, and any inconsistencies or improbabilities, are not noticed or forgiven by the excellence of the writing and acting. Hurrah for ‘Silent Witness’ and all the people who have written, acted or produced it!

My featured image is from the series 8-15, with Tom Ward, Emilia Fox and William Gaminara.