The moral swingball

Justice is a subjective term when it comes to drama series. Especially ones that determine to take up an entire week’s prime time slots with a cliffhanger demanding you tune in to the next night helpfully tacked on to the end of each.

With representatives from the cops, a barrister, a solicitor and a few rogues thrown in for good measure, it appears that Injustice is determined to swing our centre of morality one way and then the other like a swingball champion going all out in the final.

The very first thing that attracted me to Injustice, however, is its writer – Anthony Horowitz. He wrote the books I loved when I was a kid about The Devil’s Doorbell, the Stormbreaker series this generation’s tweenagers are devouring from the libraries, as well as more grown up fare like Foyle’s War, Murder In Mind and everyone’s favourite – Midsomer Murders.

He has form for delivering the goods. It’s clear that the cast think so too as it’s another one of those cracking ensemble line-ups featuring the every delicious James Purefoy (Rome, The Philanthropist), the fabulous Dervla Kirwin (The Silence, 55 Degrees North and – not forgetting, though I’m sure she wishes we would – Good Night Sweetheart), Charlie Creed-Miles
(Harry Brown, Nil By Mouth), and Nathaniel Parker (The Inspector Lynley Mysteries).

It’s well done. Though quite whether it will maintain interest and keep us on the edge of our seats for a week’s worth of staying in (or with our fingers on the Sky+ for those with the right equipment) remains to be seen. It seems to think it’s rather clever from the off, with Charlie Creed-Miles’ disgruntled copper muttering about the barristers; “they know nothing about the real world, the law’s just a game to them”.

Them and us already delineated within the established ‘them and us’ we’ve come to expect. The old game is called Cops And Robbers, not Cops And Barristers for a reason. Some people are supposed to be on the same side.

But not in Injustice. Everyone has their own story and their own agenda. It’s slightly worrying when a programme starts out complicated with the intention of coming together by the end of the series, as it does mean holding an awful lot of threads in your head at any one time.

And it has to deliver on a pay-off that satisfies every single on of those questions asked in the first episode.
But Anthony Horowitz is writing so I shouldn’t worry.

I’ve mentioned The Killing before here, but it does seem to be off the back of that programme’s phenomenal success that there has sprung up so many detective shows twisting and turning to demonstrate the further effects of the central crimes.

The Killing was complicated. It was also very well written, well acted and had 20 hour long episodes to follow those red herrings, explore those questions and fill in all of those details. It remains to be seen if Injustice and all of its dramatic bedfellows can deliver as much without the budget for that incredibly long run.

We’ll certainly have a better idea by Friday.

Injustice, ITV1, every night this week.