Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

Brilliant and touching

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

This one isn't written by La Plante and it shows. The cacophony of the station room is replaced by a hum. Things are more sorted, the plot details pointed to ostentatiously.This one is about racism - about how racial tensions cause destruction all around. Many of the familiar faces from the first episode are back, but others are unfortunately gone.This one goes on forever. All these episodes are four hours long but this one feels that long. Two hours through it and you'll expect an ending and then you'll check the clock and you're likely to yelp 'OMG another two hours?'It's not bad - but it does drag. As all these stories, it's incredibly complex and intricately woven - and it will beat most television crime drama fare. But odds are at the end of the game you'll long for the return of La Plante.

Spoilers: Helen Mirren returns as DCI Jane Tennison, now enjoying the notoriety and success of capturing a dangerous serial killer. Now, she must solve the murder of a young girl, whose remains were found buried in a back yard. The body is found in a minority neighborhood, one that has been at odds with her police station. Tennison must confront racist attitudes amongst her own team and from within herself, while trying to identify the body and track down her killer. Added to that is her brief affair with a subordinate, a black detective sergeant.Mirren provides another great performance, again aided by Lynda La Plante's excellent script. This time around, she doesn't have to prove herself; but, she does have to overcome racial obstacles and political hurdles. Her task is further complicated, when her former lover, DS Bob Oswald is added to her team, without her knowledge. She is desperately afraid that their affair will become public knowledge and hurt her career. This leads her to treat Oswald with disrespect.Colin Salmon makes a tremendous debut as Oswald, a man who shares many traits with Tennison. He, too, has had to overcome obstacles in his career; where she had to overcome gender discrimination, he has faced racial discrimination. He possesses the same obsessive nature, which ultimately leads to tragedy. It's amazing that Salmon hasn't appeared in more prominent roles, at least here in the US. He is far too talented to be wasted in minor supporting roles in James Bond films.This case ends on a less satisfying note than the previous one. Although Tennison and Oswald solve the case and catch their killer, their careers have been harmed. Oswald is disciplined for his actions which contribute to the suicide of a suspect, while in custody. Tennison is passed over for promotion, in part due to her gender, but also due to her involvement with Oswald. To make matters worse, she is passed over for a junior colleague with political connections. Tennison resigns rather than face the humiliation of working for her adversary, Thorndike. Although not as tightly paced and suspenseful as the first series, this succeeds quite well. There is an interesting feature to the broadcast of this series: in the recent dvd release, there are scenes added which did not appear in the original PBS broadcasts, or in the video release. These mostly involve shots of nude or partially nude photos, and at least one graphic scene involving Jason Reynolds (well, graphic in comparison to what was broadcast here). More curiously, several racial epithets are heard, which were censored in the PBS broadcast. Equally curious, is the deletion of a scene where young men from the neighborhood hurl bricks and stones over a wall at police working in the back yard.

I was flipping through channels and came across this second installment of the Prime Suspect mini-series which star Helen Mirren. However I'm not really a fan of the series, but was very impressed with the performance of Colin Salmon, who plays Sgt. Robert Oswalde. Salmon since then has worked on films such as the Bond films, Resident Evil, and the mini-series Dinotopia, however didn't ever have such a big part as he does in Prime Suspect 2. Salmon is very good in this role and his performance alone is a reason to watch it. Pretty decent mini-series.SCORE: 7 out of 10 (good)

Television has never been considered "high art", but this 4-hour miniseries is about as close to that as you're going to find. When I first saw this series several years ago, I said it was the finest television miniseries I'd ever seen (so, longer-running series like I Claudius don't fall into this category). I recently saw it again, and I stand by my original opinion. Virtually every aspect of this series is exception and memorable -- an intricate, intriguing detective story, finely-drawn characters, subtle probing of psychological, social, and racial issues, remarkable acting, original and impressive cinematography, incredible editing, clear direction...even great costume design and an unforgettable musical score. This series was as riveting to me the second time I saw it as the first, and I constantly noticed many nuances and attention to detail which I missed the first time. This is a remarkable film, which stands up to repeated viewing and can be enjoyed on many levels. I can't recommend it enough. You won't be disappointed. (And I really don't engage in such hyperbole often...see some of my other reviews!)