Reboot of 1980s British crime classic is gripping, but it struggles to move on from the past
Bergerac ★★★
The darkness is no longer on the edge of town. This reboot of the British crime drama about a hardened police detective on the Channel Island of Jersey, which ran for nine seasons between 1981 and 1991, begins at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Jim Bergerac (Brassic 's Damien Molony) painfully offers something his job celebrated: a confession. A widower for six months, drinking has become his means of forgetting. It's a quiet, defiant monologue, which Bergerac undercuts by reaching for his hip flask as soon as he's alone.
There's no easy middle ground when it comes to the tone of a reboot. Lightening a show up can be classed as cowardice, embracing the grimness gets labelled predictable. The creator of the new Bergerac, Toby Whithouse, has done a thorough if somewhat, well, predictable job with this six-part series. Bergerac is something of a mess, his reputation in tatters and his teenage daughter, Kim (Chloe Sweetlove), drifting towards his formidable mother-in-law, Charlie Hungerford (Zoe Wanamaker).
There's a suggestion Bergerac needs a case more than the case needs him. He pleads for his leave to end when a high-profile murder shakes the island community: the daughter-in-law of mogul Arthur Wakefield (Philip Glenister) has been murdered at an otherwise empty family compound. Bergerac has great instincts, but he acts rashly. His replacement and nominal supervisor, the insecure Barney Crozier (Robert Gilbert), is keen for him to make a public blunder. Bergerac appears keen to comply.
How you'll view this sturdy six-part mystery obviously depends on your memories of the original. Mine are vague. I recall the stark landscape of Jersey, and Bergerac's vintage car – a burgundy 1947 Triumph Roadster; it was a show that somehow always seemed to be on when I got home from a gig (Bergerac aired here on Channel Seven, which helped fund the series). Devotees of the original, with John Nettles in the title role, might question the changes.
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The case of the week has become a season-long arc, and the Triumph Roadster is up on blocks in Bergerac's garage – a symbol of his failing life. It's not like there weren't bleak tinges to the original series. In the 1980s, Bergerac was something of a functioning alcoholic, and the cases didn't always wrap up easily. But Molony is very good as a man struggling to stay afloat, and there are intriguing undercurrents in his rush to solve a complicated murder case with the suggestion that some of his prior successes were, in fact, flawed.
One strong plus in the give and take of reboot realities is Wanamaker as Charlie. The veteran actress brings a quiet jolt to every scene she shares with Molony. 'We're cellmates,' Charlie tells Bergerac, united by their loss, but Charlie expects more of Bergerac, particularly as a father, than he's capable of. She always speaks very poorly of Piers Morgan, so bonus points there.
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