Prime Suspect: Tennison, A Trip Back In Time
The prequel to beloved crime drama series Prime Suspect comes to Masterpiece this summer. Entitled Prime Suspect: Tennison, it takes us back to the beginning of the career of one of British television's most famous detectives. It's 1973, and a young Jane Tennison has just joined the force...
DCI Jane Tennison: My voice suddenly got lower, has it? Maybe my knickers are too tight. Listen, I like to be called Governor or The Boss. I don't like Ma'am - I'm not the bloody Queen. So take your pick.
This seems to be the decade of 25th anniversaries, as TV looks back on itself and revives popular programs from the end of the last century. With the Inspector Morse prequel series Endeavour a solid hit, ITV went back this year and did an origin series for another major property of the 1990s, Prime Suspect, which helped rocket Helen Mirren to fame.
When Prime Suspect first came to PBS in the 1990s, the show was a revelation to me. Up until that point, Masterpiece Theater's "Mystery" series (later re-branded "Masterpiece Mystery") were mostly period pieces -- David Suchet's Poirot, Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes and Roy Marsden's Adam Dalgiesh in the early P.D. James adaptations. In short: male detectives, working in a male dominated world, with only the occasional intrusions of Mrs. Hudson or Miss Lemon with tea. Women detectives were relegated to Miss Marple, who was an old biddy who'd come of age in the Victorian era, or flapper era Tuppance, who always had her Tommy to rescue her.
