Grantchester Episode #2.1 (2014– ) Online

Grantchester returns for a second series and the producers have livened up the colour palette from the more dreary tones from the first series.

In the opening episode Reverend Sidney Chambers is accused of sexual assault by the father of 15 year old Abigail Redmond.

After being released Geordie and Sidney find her dead body at a photographer's studio where it looks like she posed for racy pictures.

There are a whole host of suspects including the photographer, her school friends and her angry father who accused Sidney based on her accounts in her diary. The possible motive for her death was that she was pregnant.

Viewers would like the atmospheric, 1950s setting although I tend to admire the more lower budget Father Brown on BBC1. The trouble with the episode was that all the clues of the culprit is in the diary that Sidney reads which allows him to guess the culprit. Which means all the police had to do was ready the diary and figure it out.

A terrible, falsely "current" script ruins the chance of a decent episode. What is wrong with the people running this show? Perhaps the writer here who formerly squatted out "Eastenders" episodes mistakenly thought that a period piece about a dishy vicar deserved the appallingly tawdry plot. Perhaps the producers lack education, intelligence and taste. Perhaps no one cares about maintaining - or finding - integrity in a show that ought to be easy to do - with ample acting talent and other resources ready to be used, and wasted.

Yes, such situations always have occurred. But the violence in the police station, the foul talk in the vicarage, the silly "let's have the man the girl's parents mistrust accompany the police to the house of grief" approach to a dramatic scene, the anachronistic dialogue, the preening and smug haughtiness of the script - these all showed that the interest was the writers wanting to raise current concerns about priestly scandals and cover-ups, counter blame-the-victim reflexes and get a good stab in at the system.

Taking one second to frame the action in a historically responsible way would have helped. Taking another second to show some awareness that these characters already have been established would have helped keep them from being propelled into behaviors not true to them. Taking a third second to question the effect of having said dishy vicar strip to a tight and skimpy bathing suit, sans undershirt, in front of a mixed group and making sure his genital bulge was visible would have helped make the whole affair not look like the production team have contempt for its audience.

To avoid dishonest advertising, the insipid production team need to make clear that this show is simply a latter-day soap opera with a "young woman's point of view." At least then we'll know to expect an inaccurate, poorly plotted, creepily anti-male tale showing a vicarage being treated like a frat house and the hero being objectified in a sexist manner. There is no crime investigation here, no serious examination of morals and mores in a time of change. There is only the unpleasant sense that one is intruding on a sexually frustrated writer fantasies as she acts out her rage at Daddy and gets revenge on old boyfriends.

Appallingly bad.