TV Review: The Fall’s Stella is nobody’s fool

The ending to the first series of The Fall, BBC2’s highest rated new drama for eight years, split the opinions of its many viewers.

There were those who felt cheated and then there were the rest, who objected to it even more vehemently!

When we’ve followed a programme for five weeks and been gripped by the macabre actions of a serial killer and the steely-eyed professionalism of the police officer out to catch him, we at least expect the two protagonists to meet face-to-face at the conclusion. We certainly don’t want the murderer escaping to Scotland with his wife and kids.

Paul Spector was back in Belfast as series two began on Thursday and if you thought Michael Portillo chatting to student Eurorailers during his Great Continental Railway Journey was the creepiest train-based television you’d see this week, Paul’s interaction with his next intended victim as he travelled home to Northern Ireland shunted it into the sidings to be sure.

If Paul’s on-screen presence send shivers down my spine, Gillian Anderson’s appearance as DSI Stella Gibson brings a tingling to a different region.

Stella follows in a long line of female police officers that have fascinated us. Jane Tennison, Sarah Lund, er, Cagney and Lacey (OK maybe it’s not as long a line as I thought) and where Lund’s thick woollen jumpers denoted she was strictly business, Gibson’s open-buttoned blouses hint at her personality away from catching crooks (and if that’s too subtle she also invited a married detective to her hotel room within five minutes of meeting him in the first series).

In truth this was a low-key return for The Fall and I hope writer/director Allan Cubitt hasn’t toned things down to seek viewers.

“Let’s try something different,” said Stella in her opening scene. You really don’t need to except when it comes to the ending.