Prime Suspect 6: The Last Witness (2004)

That was an excellent one.

Lack of good storyline.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Is this the best of the lot? Those who've seen all of them talk a lot about 1 and 2. I haven't seen them yet. I'm tempted to order all seven on DVD.This is a new format this time. Some things have changed but some things stayed the same. Again it's an intriguing case woven expertly in the lay-up by the writer and the filming team. And in this one perhaps more than in the others I've seen the cinematography is fantastic. Angles as if they're coming out of a Kubrick classic. There is much eye candy in here.So Jane Tennison is back - and she's battling the same bad guys as ever. This time she's surrounded on all sides by the same type of motley crew: the ambitious career types, the slacker types, the mens club types - you know the drill.But the lady's acting never gets boring. Mirren brings something special, something extra to whatever she's in.This one will take you on an exotic journey. And it's not a walk in the park either. If 5 was one of the most intense (of those I've seen) then 6 can't be far behind.As always, on top of all the other excellent work done on this series, you have the star. She's inimitable.

Spoilers all the way through.If you're like me, you read the reviews only after seeing the movie or program. If I really enjoyed it, I then check the reaction of others - a sharing of the exhilaration. The other reviews here are excellent and reflect my own views.This is a role in which Helen Mirren has done consummate justice (yeah, yeah, the wordplay is intentional…): as 'nancinger' aptly says in her review, 'she's as hard as nails on the surface and as crumpled up as ever on the inside.' And tougher than Dirty Harry.The suspense is palpable. The race against time in the hospital against a murderer, and we really don't know how it will turn out, keeps us on the edge of our seats. But there's suspense in the interrogations, too. Do you, as I do, try to anticipate the questions, try to out-cool the 'interrogatee'? When I'm stumped, Tennison comes through, though not without a sideways glance, a bit of a pause to think. There's suspense in the politics, in how Tennison has to negotiate the labyrinthine obstacles her own department puts in her way, how she has to guess at her own people's agendas, how she has to manage them, offend them yet keep their loyalties, there's suspense as to who will stab her in the back and who will pull through for her.Some of the devices are obvious, some less so, but they're effective. We see cleaning women often enough to think 'enough, already, I get the point!!!', Tennison reaching out for her father, then pulling her hand back, but most effective is the light shining through a bullet hole onto her eye at the scene of the massacre, recalling her earlier eye exam from its perpetrator – very effective indeed. (And I must give kudos to Oleg Menshikov for his outstanding performance as a charismatic psychopath.)When Tennison first visited her father, I was worried it would be filler, but it turned out to be essential. A later visit was a wonderful paean to this great TV detective, a rousing peroration that explains, by one who should know, what makes Tennison tick and what she should do. Mix in the hesitation with the hand and we see the twin manifestations of her hardness and her 'crumpledness' in the same scene.It is inevitable that when I pop in the DVD to watch a new Prime Suspect series, I will watch it through in one sitting, three hours, four hours be damned... A superlative show.

Just finished watching #6 which was screened in two parts this week on SVT1. Was on the edge of my seat for both episodes.Mirren is, as always, a joy to watch. This riveting story is blessed with a great ending. It felt really good after this one. Quite a lot of thriller/police dramas end without one feeling that justice has been meted out. Here, the main antagonists get their just desserts. And I mean everybody. Especially the woman from the secret service. That look she gives her man at the end is priceless.Beautifully shot and nicely scored. A great bit of telly to be sure. Top marks here!

"Prime Suspect 4" continues the exploits of the inscrutable and dogged seeker of truth and justice, Detective Superintendent Jane Tennison; the first of three miniseries (PS4, PS5, & PS6) with the notable absence of founding writer Lynda La Plante from the credits. Imbued with the same gritty reality of the first three series, the second three series pit Tennison against the forces of evil while coping with middle age, loneliness, indiscretions, a host of personal and professional problems, and resolutions which are sometimes less than ideal. PS4 conjures two stories while PS5 & PS6 are single stories which find Tennison seeking justice on behalf of the brutally wronged while waging war against institutions which are willing to sacrifice the interests of her victims for those of a greater good. In other words, to prevail, Tennison must overcome both evil and good forces, something which makes the always gray scenarios of the PS series yet grayer and the Tennison wars as much a matter of principle as of finding murderers. Very good stuff which only gets better from series to series. For reasons of continuity, watch in chronological order. (B+)