COLLISION: Part 1 of 5

[SPOILERS] The BBC's forays into weeklong serials have proven unexpectedly successful, with Criminal Justice and Torchwood both airing five weeknight episodes to big ratings and glowing reviews. It seems that audiences (yes, even in this fragmented multimedia world) are prepared to commit to the stripped mini-series format -- although clearly it shouldn't be overused, and kept as an occasional treat...

ITV follows in the BBC's footsteps with Collision, a drama that needs to grab a big audience and keep them glued to their sofas every night until Friday. Did they succeed? Well, we won't get the full picture until the weekend*, but there was enjoyment to be had in the first part of this five-part special. I just found many of the characters too clichéd and the vast majority of this opener was pure exposition, while the climactic car crash itself was, frankly, a big disappointment. I've seen more stimulating and compelling vehicular crashes on the average episode of Casualty. I wasn't expecting a motorway pileup to rival Final Destination 2, but I found it hard to believe this was a particularly epic car crash, and couldn't even follow the stunt choreography very well.

The most successful element of this episode, scripted by Anthony Horowitz & Michael A. Walker, was its flashback device. We opened to see DI John Tolin (Douglas Henshall) returning to work after a long absence, and going through the case-notes of the titular collision, as the story jumped back in time to the day before the crash and followed each character's lives. Primarily these were: shadowy brothers Jeffrey (Craig Kelly) and Danny (Dean Lennox Kelly), the latter of whom is seen transporting illegal cargo into the UK from Europe; piano teacher Sidney (David Bamber), who had delivered a CD to a strange man in a café; motorway services waitress Jane (Lucy Griffiths); and personal assistant Karen (Claire Rushbrook), who has stolen government documents from her boss codenamed "Locust", amongst other less defined people caught in the melee...

The one thing this episode did well was define and outline each character quickly and effortlessly, but I'm hoping for more depth to reveal itself in the remaining episodes. Everyone was fairly clichéd (the girlfriend with the insensitive boyfriend, the ageing man with the battleaxe mother, the scallyway brothers, the middle-aged loner), but we'll see how rich they become now everything's setup and DI Tolin was start to uncover each character's secrets...

Of mild concern is that a few of the individual mysteries appear fairly predictable -- the brothers were transporting an illegal immigrant, no? The piano teacher's a paedophile passing on child porn to others in his circle, surely? Maybe I'm wrong, or was being led down a path intentionally by the script, but we'll see. The frustrating thing about these five-part serials intentionally airing every night is that any criticisms you have could be annulled within 24-hours, so I'll mainly be offering gut reactions and thoughts until Friday from hereon in.

Overall, Collision wasn't as gripping as I'd expected, I thought Henshall was particularly wasted (staring at his wall in a cramped office for most of the episode), the basic setup didn't offer anything that felt unique or fresh, and the stuntwork was abrupt and incoherent, but the fact there are four more hours left has me hopeful Anthony Horowitz and Michael Walker's series has a more complex and emotional story up its sleeve... and part 1 just didn't intend to show any of that yet.

I'm intrigued enough to give tonight's episode a whirl, so I dare say that makes part 1 a success.


9 November 2009
ITV1, 9pm

written by: Anthony Horowitz & Michael A. Walker directed by: Marc Evans starring: Douglas Henshall (DI John Tolin), Kate Ashfield (SIO Ann Stallwood), Sushil Chudasama (PC Sanjay Gopal), Andrew Brooke (PC Alan Clacy), Pip Torrens (Deputy Com Fraser), Paul McGann (Richard Reeves), Jo Woodcock (Jodie Tolin), Christopher Fulford (DCI Stephen Maitland), Dean Lennox Kelly (Danny Rampton), Craig Kelly (Jeffrey Rampton), Frank Harper (Derek), Claire Rushbrook (Karen Donnelly), David Bamber (Sidney Norris), Brian Pettifer (Ed Wilson), Di Botcher (Mrs Whitfield), Lenora Crichlow (Alice Jackson), Anwar Lynch (Gareth Clay), Nimmy March (Carol Jackson), Colin McFarlane (Bill Jackson), Zoe Telford (Sandra Rampton), Nick Moss (Jake), Pano Masti (Ozan), Lucy Griffiths (Jane Tarrant), Matt Ryan (Dave Brown), Christopher Villiers (Keith Fowler), Jocelyn Jee Esien (Cindie Smith), Joe Westcott (Simon Parker), Caroline Trowbridge (Mrs Parker) & Phil Davis (Brian Edwards)

* 7.5 million tuned in for Monday's first part (twice as many as the BBC's Life documentary), so that's certainly a great start. Now, can they keep those numbers 'till Friday?