Masterpiece: Prime Suspect: Tennison 1973

DVD Wholesale Quick Overview:

Prime Suspect 1973 tells the story of 22-year-old Jane Tennison’s first days in the police force, in which she endured flagrant sexism before being thrown in at the deep end with a murder enquiry.

The subtitle of this series is “A Life of Crime Begins”, which is odd. It makes it sound like Jane Tennison was a crook. In any case, this is the back story, how 22 year-old Probationary WPC Tennison starts the process of becoming Detective Chief Inspector Tennison.

She’s Probationary because she is in a testing period before becoming a full-fledged member of the Hackney police department. Tennison works in Comm (dispatch) which hardly stretches the little gray cells. But two crimes are about the hit Hackney, and all-hands-on-deck means Tennison is thrown into the thick of things.

First, the body of a 17 year-old woman is found in the abandoned garage of Kingsmead Estate (a housing project). Secondly, though the police don’t know it yet, a big heist is being planned by the Bentleys, senior and his two sons.

But before that, it would help if Tennison could get to work on time. She straggles in late (though we know she has a good reason) and Sarge is not amused, “You turn up for duty late. Looking like you’ve just been wrestling a pig. You’re supposed to be making up for last week’s traffic screw-up so I have something positive to write in your first probationary report.”

Since this is a prequel, I’m not giving anything away to write that Tennison will pass in her reports, including not fainting at her first post mortem. But it’s not a simple matter of doing her job. Ethics raises its ugly head, or at least its inconvenient head, as she’s told: “It’s the way the game works.” This makes for good drama and good character evolvement. I’m also happy to report that there is no Hollywood ending, and you’ll see what I mean.

DVD Wholesale Main Features:

Actors: Stefanie Martini, Sam Reid, Blake Harrison, Alun Armstrong
Directors: David Caffrey
Format: Color, NTSC, Widescreen
Language: English
Region: Region 1
Number of discs: 2
Rated: NR Not Rated
Studio: ITV Studios Home Entertainment
DVD Release Date: April 10, 2017
Run Time: 360 minutes
ASIN: B06XCMSX9S