INTERNAL AFFAIRS (UNFORGOTTEN, SERIES 4)

 

Four series in and avid followers of 'Unforgotten' know the formula off by heart by now.

A body is discovered, with Nicola Walker's DCI Cassie Stuart and Sanjeev Bhaskar's DI Sunny Khan called to the scene.

Forensics set about their business trying to determine how long the body may have been concealed.

They are able to help pinpoint the exact date by focusing on a particular object.

Stuart and Khan's team run with this line of enquiry and identify four or five shifty individuals who knew the victim.

Those four or five suspects are evasive not just about their past but as other dodgy, current goings come to light.

Eventually the conspiracy of silence crumbles and the killer or killers are revealed.

That's how 'Unforgotten' has worked for three series.

However during the fourth, writer Chris Lang and director Andy Wilson have decided to really shake up the formula.

(SPOLIERS ALERT!)

Series 3 concluded with cracks really beginning to show in the personal and professional life of DCI Cassie Stuart.

The death of Pete Carr after an act of carelessness by her in a coffee shop and the unmasking of the serial killer behind Hayley Reid and other missing victims' murders left her broken, upset and drained.

If that wasn't bad enough, her relationship with her father, Peter Egan's Martin started to disintegrate on the back of his dementia and his developing relationship with Janet Sibley's Jenny who she suspected was taking advantage of him.

With a new man in her life - Alastair Mackenzie's John Bentley - Cassie decided to take a leave of absence.

Far from recharging her batteries during this break from police work, it is clear at the start of series 4 the cracks in her life have just widened and deepened.

Martin's relationship with Jenny and his declaration that he is going to change his will to ensure she is taken care of from his share of the sale of the family home really irritates Cassie.

She is also prone to flashes of temper sometimes directed at her son, Jassa Ahluwalia's Adam - especially when he sleeps in before a viewing by a prospective buyer.

Cassie is planning with her partner Jto move in together but she seems a bit detached from it all.

Her plans to leave the force on the grounds of medical retirement are also thwarted when she realises she needs to serve a few more months or face losing a substantial sum of money.

By way of contrast, Sunny Khan is in a state of romantic bliss domestically, with his teenage daughters getting on with his new partner, Michelle Bonnard's Sal.

Nevertheless he is clearly missing his colleague, friend and mentor, even as a new mystery presents itself with the discovery of a body in a freezer in a scrap yard.

The torso is headless and has no hands but it has Millwall FC tattoos, a lot of freezer burns and a Marathon bar wrapper which dates the body back to at least around 1990 when the chocolate bar became Snickers.

Initial inquiries by Sunny and Cassie's cold case team reveal the victim to be Matthew Walsh and the freezer having belonged to Robert Fogarty, a former graduate of the police training college who was pulled over for drink driving one night - effectively ending his hopes of a career in law enforcement.

With Cassie rejoining the team, they discover the car also contained four Hendon Police College graduates on probation - Susan Lynch's Liz Baildon, Andy Nyman's Dean Barton, Phaldut Sharma's Ram Sidhu and Liz White's Fiona Graydon.

Cassie's instinct tells her that the team should probe whether the body was in the car when it was stopped and if they were involved in its disposal.

Sunny has some reservations that Cassie's eagerness to pursue a theory of police corruption may be motivated by her growing weariness and cynicism about the job but he goes along with it.

However in true 'Unforgotten' style, the more the team digs into the lives of the suspects, the more questions it raises about their past.

Liz Baildon has a fractious relationship with her elderly mum, Sheila Hancock's Eileen who disapproved of her police career but she is a strong candidate to become a Chief Constable in East Anglia.

Ram Sidhu is a hotheaded DCI who has been accused of sexually assaulting a colleague but who fights it by counterclaiming the accusation is racially motivated.

Originally from a Sikh family, he has an estranged relationship with his father, has divorced one wife and is due to have a child with his second, Clare Calbraith's Anna, while wrestling with the news that the baby will have Down's Syndrome.

Dean Barton left the force, is married with two sons and has become a charity worker.

However he appears to be involved in a criminal sideline involving smuggling and as the series wears on a dodgy family history also emerges.

Fiona Grayson left the force too after the death of her copper father and is now a therapist living in the Peak District with her husband and two children.

As details emerge that Walsh was alleged to have sexually assaulted her, she seems the most nervous of the four suspects and it is revealed that she has also cut corners in her life.

In typical 'Unforgotten' fashion, Cassie, Sunny and their team made up of Carolina Main's DS Fran Lingley, Jordan Long's DS Murray Boulting, Lewis Reeves' DS Jake Collier and Pippa Nixon's DS Karen Willetts diligently follow the leads and compile the evidence with the help of Georgia Mackenzie's pathologist Dr Leanne Balcolme.

Eventually they discover enough murky goings on to rattle the suspects so much that the jigsaw starts to take shape.

Cassie's twitchiness throughout Series 4, however, gives the investigation a bit more of an edge and you can't help feeling that she is too distracted to be on top of her game.

Walker and Bhaskar again turn in unfussy, yet compelling lead performances as they piece together the mystery while juggling their own domestic dramas.

Although it must be said the former clearly has the meatier role and she may well figure prominently in awards shortlists as a result.

Series regulars Egan, Ahluwalia, Alastair Mackenzie, Sibley, Bonnard, Main, Long, Reeves, Nixon and Georgia Mackenzie are as good value as ever,  doing everything asked of them.

'Unforgotten' has also thrived on its smart choice of guest stars and Series 4 was no exception.

Lynch is on terrific form as a high flying, ambitious lesbian police officer who is desperate to conceal her past.

She also clearly relishes sparring with Hancock who is in delightfully wicked form as a spiteful mother.

White does an effective job as the most jittery of all the suspects, while Andy Nyman is eye catching as a high profile, fundraising figure who is not all that he seems.

However the most impressive of the four is Sharma who really embraces the chance to play a morally complex character.

The quality of Lang's storytelling is such that both he and Wilson are able to take narrative risks without undermining the show.

Unlike 'Line of Duty', 'Unforgotten' has not showered its audience with bombast over previous series.

It has eschewed dramatic twists and histrionics for much more controlled storytelling.

So when a major plot development comes along in this series, you go along with it because of all the hard yards Lang, Wilson, Walker, Bhaskar and Egan have put in.

It doesn't feel like ratings grabbing sensationalism. It just is.

Nonetheless, the major narrative development is of such significance that it will leave fans of 'Unforgotten' wondering at the end of the fourth series if the show still has a future.

There's enough to suggest it does - thanks to a well crafted and superbly acted final episode with typically tense interrogation scenes.

Having built up enough of a loyal following to attract eight million viewers for its opening episode, ITV will hopefully have the courage of its convictions to give Lang and Wilson's high quality drama another shot.

'Unforgotten' has been the best British police show of the past six years.

It more than deserves a chance to further develop.

(Series 4 of 'Unforgotten' was broadcast on ITV from February 22-March 29, 2021)

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