ABC Friday night Drama

The Silence, Collision and U Be Dead were three British mystery/drama shows that were shown on the ABC on Fridays at 8:30 in recent weeks. There are in fact a great deal of differences between them, but there are also many similarities, apart from them being British and shown in the same time slot.

The Silence was the story of an 18 year old deaf girl who witnessed a murder, that was born out of Police corruption. Her uncle happened to be the chief investigating officer. The deaf girl, Amelia was played by Genevieve Barr who is genuinely deaf, her uncle, the lead detective was played by Scottish actor Douglas Henshall. After witnessing the murder Amelia is too shocked and scared to tell anyone. But when she eventually tells her Uncle and the link to the drug squad and Police corruption is unveiled, he in turn does not want to reveal her as a witness, because of the danger to her life. This makes him liable for serious disciplinary charges, possibly even dismissal from the force. Eventually all of his family become the target of the corrupt officers, while Amelia‘s parents are looking for a way out for them, she goes missing. It is a tense and interesting story and other issues are covered such as, the Bionic Ear contraption that Amelia is fitted with. is it for her, or her mothers benefit? The relationships between young adults and their parents are often tense, deaf or otherwise, but who is to blame?

Douglas Henshall & Genevieve Barr in The Silence

Collision followed on the ABC the week after The Silence finished. It was actually filmed the year before The Silence, but who should star as the lead Scottish Detective? None other than Douglas Henshall. Now the fact that he played a Scottish Detective on both shows and he is in fact Scottish maybe suggests that he is not good at accents, but he does play a good hard nut copper. The Collision starts with a multi-car pile up on the A13 in Essex. Three people are killed and several others injured. Henshalls’ character, D.I. John Tolin is brought in from the Metropolitan Police (London) as the father of one of the victims is going to sue the Police, because her car was being pursued by a patrol car when the accident happened. So essentially he is there purely to clear the Police. But the lead traffic officer on the case is a woman that he recently had an affair with. This, together with him being interested in the stories of all of the victims, who each seem to have something to hide, makes the whole thing more complex. There’s the single man, who may or may not be a paedophile, who seems to have caused the accident. The secretary who crashed the first car into him, who is involved in some sort of industrial espionage. The man who was taking his mother-in-law out for a ride when she was killed, but where was he taking her? The millionaire who may cause bigger problems for the Police, if they are found to have caused the crash. On the other side of the road a van driven by a man who was definitely smuggling something into the country disappeared from the scene and he can not be found. The millionaire starts a liaison with a young waitress in the road side cafe where he is taken to be treated by the paramedics. So there are many interesting threads to this story.

Douglas Henshall in Collision

In Collision the young waitress is played by the lovely Lucy Griffiths and Jan Francis, most famous for her role in Just Good Friends shown on British TV in the 1980′s, played the wife of the driver whose mother-in-law was killed. They both showed up in U Be Dead which aired last night, the week after Collision finished. Lucy Griffiths once again played a girl involved with an older man and Jan Francis again played someones wife and in this case the mother of one of the lead characters.

Jan Francis a Wife in both Collision and U Be Dead

Lucy Griffiths dated older men in both Collision and U Be Dead

U Be Dead was the story of a couple being stalked and hounded by threatening phone calls. It was based on a real case and the real stalker is still serving time in a British jail. Dr Jan Falkowski (David Morrisey) and his fiance Debra Pemberton (Tara Fitzgerald) are both top British power boat sailors and are planning their wedding when the harassment starts. It’s shown in some detail and you get a feel for the pressure they were under. Debra suffers more than the Dr and he proves not to be very sympathetic to her feelings and he starts an affair with a young girl who works for the power boat racing association (Lucy Griffiths). The stalker is eventually captured, but by this time Dr Falkowski and Debra have split up and the stalker accuses him of raping her, for which he is arrested.

So all three are very good British dramas and if you missed any of them I recommend that you catch up with them when you can. And of course the links go on as Tara Fitzgerald from U Be Dead is a star of Waking the Dead another favourite ABC Friday night show.

Tara Fitzgerald star of both U Be Dead and Waking the Dead

Popularity: 100% [?]

Technorati Tags: Collision, Douglas Henshall, Genevieve Barr, Jan Francis, Lucy Griffiths, spot the difference, Tara Fitzgerald, The Silence, the silence collision u be dead spot the difference, U Be Dead

Related Posts:

• No Related Posts