Review by C.J. Bunce
Stories that lean into what makes them different are always the most fun. In the first season of BBC One and PBS Mystery’s Annika, viewers met the title character copper played by Unforgotten’s Nicola Walker, head of the new Marine Homicide Unit, tasked with solving murders in Scotland waters, having just returned to Glasgow after several years in Norway. Not since Ferris Bueller’s Day Off has any show so smartly integrated the trick of breaking the fourth wall (taking asides to speak directly to the audience) and so creative with its lead. Her quirk is using her knowledge of classic books to tie her current investigation to a famous analog. The show uses a small cast and a travelogue view of Scotland, but it’s the focus on character relationships over the crime-of-the-hour that viewers will come back for. Best of all, the second season of six 45-minute episodes is even more fun than the first.
The series dances a fine balancing act between serious mystery, formula crime drama, single mother angst, and the quirky detective trope. In a fresh twist for British mysteries, each crime is solved in a single episode, not spanning an entire season. The “will they or won’t they” of so, so many TV series is swapped here for “did they, or didn’t they”: Is Annika’s teen daughter Morgan (played by Silvie Furneaux) her love child with the show’s male lead, D.S. Michael McAndrews, played by Shetland and Guilt actor Jamie Sives? For 16 years Annika withheld the information from both Michael and Morgan–not to mention new love interest Jake, played by Doctor Who, Luther, and Hornblower star Paul McCann. So the situation sets up big reveals that are the stuff of sharp comedy. But the drama is too much to just dismiss this as another comedy–and the comedy too dry to rest on one genre. Yes, the package is greater than the sum of its parts.
Although she works on a boat instead of living on one, Annika–D.I. Strandhed–is of the same ilk as those brilliant detectives that live on a boat in TV and cinema’s past, like Quincy, M.E., Rick Simon, Detective Tony Carlson, Commissaris Piet Van Der Valk, Dr. Daniel Harrow, D.I. Max Arnold, and Sonny Crockett. That distracted mother whose brilliant career calls her away means she frequently turns to us–the viewers–as her own therapist.
It’s the uncertainty of the sea that fuels the tension as Annika must get to crime scenes fast–scenes only accessible via boat–all with striking Scotland in the background. But that doesn’t mean every episode doesn’t also embrace the requisite scrapes and foot chases, although Annika leaves those to the others–mostly. Michael gets to be the hero when he’s not kicked to the side for every other episode. Katie Leung’s D.C. Blair Ferguson has the “man in the chair” role this year–and is pretty much stuck to that chair– because she’s pregnant.
D.S. Tyrone Clarke (Ukweli Roach) winds up his run on the show as the other outsider on the squad, replaced by DC Harper Weston, played by Varada Sethu (Andor, Jurassic World Dominion), a motorcycle-riding force to be reckoned with. Prometheus, Game of Thrones, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and Shetland’s Kate Dickie returns as the supportive boss, DCI Diane Oban. But the best guest character of the season is Annika’s Nordic, sad Santa Claus father, played by Sven Henriksen.
The series is fully Scottish, complete with characters of seemingly dozens of different dialects, and many breathtaking views of the lochs and mountains Annika sails back and forth between. Added to this is the fact Annika is from Norway, which brings in a sampling of Nordic language and accents. Based on a long-running audio drama also starring Nicola Walker, the writing for the series, including those mysteries tied to novels, don’t have time for many twists, but they support the series just right.
It’s lighter, but far more satisfying than Walker’s last series, Unforgotten. And it’s another series that makes 2023 the best year of television. Add this series next to Shetland on our ever-building list of the best British mystery series. Find both seasons of Annika now streaming on PBS and PBS Passport.
