4 out of 5

Created by: Kate Brooke

covers season 1

While Bancroft essentially counts on getting a pass to spin its wheels for four episodes – we’re given a fair amount of info up front, and you could view the entire mini-series as waiting for a shoe to drop – that it presents its characters’ defining actions rather openly  is intriguing, especially since the person on whom the title suggests we’ll be focusing – next-in-line-for-DS Bancroft (Sarah Parish) is… not a good person.

And this isn’t Shield / Braquo do bad to do good stuff, nor is Bancroft a Walter White subverted villain type: she’s really just not a good person.  When rookie officer Katherine Stevens (the awesome Faye Marsay) is given a 27 year old cold case to clean up, we are rather clearly shown that Bancroft has blood on her hands from that event, and not the kind of blood that can be justified by a last minute twist.  And if we have any further doubts, the actions she takes to block Katherine’s investigation necessarily erase those.

The fascinating benefit to this – to not withholding Bancroft’s complicity as a secret – is that the show can effectively meld the two sides of her personality believably: we see how this well-respected, forthwith detective slips toward the dark side, and the mental justifications that are in place to keep her moving forward.  And yet, it’s still not quite Bancroft’s show, as most of our time is with Stevens and forensic scientist Anya Karim (the equally awesome Amara Karan), and their slow but steady progress toward rooting out the truth.

This is a fantastic batch of female actors, well supported by some male hanger-ons as boyfriends, or exes, or bosses, but Bancroft (the show) smartly doesn’t go out if its way to make this a gender study.  It’s between the lines – the difficulties of making a go of things in this job for women – but the focus is on the investigation, and we can interpret other actions surrounding that as we deem fit.

What could have used some further prodding, though, are the parallels between Katherine and Bancroft, especially later on when Stevens has to make some questionable decisions to get evidence she needs.  It’s unclear if the parallels are purposeful or just happenstance, and that lack of clarity is disappointing, for some rich psychological stuff may have lain therein, though I can understand  leaving that out for timing concerns.

For all the murder mystery mini-series  that the BBC delivers, even the betters of the batch tend to follow a formula.  Bancroft isn’t perfect, but by subverting some structural expectations and actually removing much of the mystery, it ultimately proves very compelling.