Hope Street looks and feels familiar. The BBC ran a drama in 2015, 'The Coroner', set in a Cornish seaside town, which similarly ran to 20 episodes, concerning an attractive young woman coroner (Claire Goose) as Jane, who works in tandem with the small local police force, where she has an unresolved relationship with a local DS, Davey. Cue the 'will they, won't they' sexual tension, a running theme. There are several parallels: the drama is set against an attractive seaside location in a small Atlantic fishing port; one episode is cleared up when we discover that a character's gender has long been hidden; the local pub is a key location, etc.. The scripts in both series attempt to balance the crime action with the private life of the main characters. More recently, the gentle New Zealand rural crime series 'Brokenwood' has been exploring similar territory.
In all three, the current case must be resolved in one episode and, the odd gory detail aside, all three avoid gritty reality, as befits the daytime TV slot. And, like the BBC's long-running 'Doctors' series, all have been accused of hammy acting, which must be hard to avoid when made on small budgets in cramped spaces with never a swear word, where the action revolves around parochial fluff with an attempt at amusing tension and banter between eccentric stock characters. We saw this much-repeated formula in 'Heartbeat'-sleepy attractive location, underlying romantic difficulties, loveable rogues, gentle whodunits, the work/life balance problems of the police officer, etc. Cosy stuff; so don't expect too much and there's plenty to enjoy.
I did find the direction (editing?) irritating where scenes tailed off to characters silently looking tense for seconds, or rolling their eyes. Echoes of 'Acorn Antiques'.
The cast list shows S1 characters Barry and Concepta don't appear in S2, and Nichole and central character Leila appear once only, in S1E2. Series 2 action seems to move to Flynn, Callum, and Flynn's family. Shame-Leila's full-lipped pout was worth series of its own.
In all three, the current case must be resolved in one episode and, the odd gory detail aside, all three avoid gritty reality, as befits the daytime TV slot. And, like the BBC's long-running 'Doctors' series, all have been accused of hammy acting, which must be hard to avoid when made on small budgets in cramped spaces with never a swear word, where the action revolves around parochial fluff with an attempt at amusing tension and banter between eccentric stock characters. We saw this much-repeated formula in 'Heartbeat'-sleepy attractive location, underlying romantic difficulties, loveable rogues, gentle whodunits, the work/life balance problems of the police officer, etc. Cosy stuff; so don't expect too much and there's plenty to enjoy.
I did find the direction (editing?) irritating where scenes tailed off to characters silently looking tense for seconds, or rolling their eyes. Echoes of 'Acorn Antiques'.
The cast list shows S1 characters Barry and Concepta don't appear in S2, and Nichole and central character Leila appear once only, in S1E2. Series 2 action seems to move to Flynn, Callum, and Flynn's family. Shame-Leila's full-lipped pout was worth series of its own.