Taggart Apocalypse Part One (1983–2010) Online

Have always adored detective dramas/mystery series. This has been apparent from an early age, half my life even, when getting into Agatha Christie through Joan Hickson's Miss Marple and David Suchet's Poirot and into 'Inspector Morse'.

Whether it's the more complex ones like 'Inspector Morse' (and its prequel series 'Endeavour') and anything Agatha Christie. Whether it's the grittier ones like 'A Touch of Frost' (though that is balanced brilliantly with comedy too). And whether it's the light-hearted ones like 'Murder She Wrote'. 'Taggart' is one of the biggest examples of the grittier ones, especially the Mark McManus years and the earlier James MacPherson episodes.

Up to this point of 'Taggart' all the episodes ranged from decent to brilliant. For me "Apocalypse" was their first stumble, not because it is a terrible episode but it just left me cold and basically too over-the-top and bizarre to me.

There are some undeniably good things. "Apocalypse", as was always the case with 'Taggart', looks great, with scenery that is both gritty and picturesque and as ever it's stylishly shot. The music has atmosphere and the theme song is very hard to forget and matches the grit of the show so well.

As is the case with 'Taggart' always, the murders are brutal and not for the faint-hearted. One in particular, involving a shower and fire, did disturb me and has made me not think of 'Swan Lake' the same way again, it's a great and beautiful piece but used so hauntingly here. Cannot fault the regulars, with great performances from James MacPherson and Blythe Duff (their chemistry still delighting), scene stealing support from Robert Robertson and Colin McCredie is slowly coming into his own thanks to Stuart playing a crucial role. The Jardine's brother subplot had some intrigue.

However, the case just didn't grab me, it did feel under-utilised and bland due to being over-shadowed by everything with the cult. Usually at this point the identity and motive of the killer caught me by surprise, but actually guessed both correctly early on after deciding to eliminate from my personal suspects list the most pantomimic and obvious character. The mystery is just lost amidst everything with the cult, which featured too heavily and was both over-the-top and absurd, at worst difficult to take seriously. The ending came over as predictable and overblown.

Found the support acting for up to this point of the show uncharacteristically poor, other than for Louise and Jardine's brother. The cult leader character David for someone intended to be dominating and something of a bully came over as too cartoonish and Nicholas Clay's overacting did unbalance the episode and felt like it belonged somewhere else. The dialogue has some thought-provoking moments, concerning the case, but too much of it is forced, the writing for David was too theatrical melodrama-like.

Concluding, bizarre and left me feeling very, very mixed, leaning towards the underwhelmed. 5/10 Bethany Cox