For fans of the original Cracker nothing will ever measure up - how do you follow class acts like series 1 and 2? Answer - you can't really, times have moved on, no follow up can ever hope to have the same impact as the original and so it must be taken for what it is - a follow up which does its best to keep the feel of the original but which has to accept that, over a decade on, the country in which it is set has been through a lot of changes too.
Nevertheless this latest Cracker special isn't quite the abomination it's been made out to be, and I feel a lot of the criticisms aimed at it have missed the point.
It's true that the police are pretty characterless compared to old favourites like Bilborough, Penhaligon and Beck, but as opposed to being a criticism I see this as a clever comment on how PC has turned people in this country into cardboard cut outs scared of having a personality, especially in jobs where they have to deal with the public. Neutral, bland and nondescript, the attitude of our age is sharply observed as nobody wants to put their head on the block and be personally accountable for anything - passing the buck is the order of the day as they refuse to commit themselves to saying or doing anything that might come back on them later, accurately reflecting the paranoia of the modern workplace.
The anti-American sentiment is not as extreme as it could have been, but a few uncomfortable truths come out which I can see people being upset about. Too bad. To me this is not the writer projecting his political views onto the audience, as has been suggested, but that Cracker remains tough, topical and not scared to tell people the truth about themselves.
The plot could have been tighter in places and the coincidences it relied on are a little more obvious than in previous episodes, but not anything new in themselves. They've always been there in murder dramas, which by their nature are event driven.
Fitz is not as effective here which is a bit disappointing but is also more realistic than having the police bend the rules for him, which would have been out of the little character they have. He still manages to show his healthy disrespect for authority in small ways, like smoking in the police station, which I find just as entertaining as his more outspoken rants in earlier episodes. Times have changed and he's older. Robbie's performance has been called sleepwalking through the part but it could also be seen as Fitz being a lot more world weary since he is now in his 50s. As always, he is a joy to watch, and I can forgive a lot of the shortcomings of this episode to have him back.
To sum up, it's not Cracker at its best but it's not a disaster either. You could waste two hours on worse than this. In the modern day TV arena of the bland leading the bland, it still shines.
