Another John Doe, I see. No, don’t dump him on that table, we have to eat off there – this isn’t one of those cop movies where the wise-cracking coroner eats a hotdog dripping with fried onions whilst processing an entire jamboree of Boy Scouts that fell through a wheat thresher. This is a British Drama Series. Our corpses are so realistically grisly they made Quentin Tarantino vomit. You want pretty corpses and amusing death-scene banter, go to the boys at TORCHWOOD. Otherwise, let’s open up this body of work and see whether it has a sense of humour we may be able to transplant into the script writers for SILENT WITNESS (ABC, Fridays 8:30pm)
Yes folks, that laugh-a-minute Forensic Homicide series SILENT WITNESS is back for a tenth season of dissecting the bejeesus out of a murdered cadaver until it yields evidence to pinpoint its killer – and, indirectly, make you pine for the good old days when CSI’s hunky Nick would help solve a quirkily amusing murder case before grabbing sexy geek Greg to trade homoerotic banter and forensically examine him (Oh, you missed that episode? Shame!).
Not that SILENT WITNESS is a bunch of crap – on the contrary, it’s an intricately plotted and consummately acted series of telemovies revolving around the world of forensic pathology. It’s just that right from the start, when a mournful voice sings a somber funeral dirge in Latin over the credits, you know you’re not exactly in for a rib-tickling evening – unless one of the pathologists actually opens a corpse’s ribs during the investigation.
We real-life Forensic Scientists (Amazingly, I do have a life outside of television!) tend to pour scorn on other less realistic forensic shows, but dang-nabbit SILENT WITNESS gets all its forensic facts and police procedurals right. C’mon BBC – give me something to mock already!
For the first seven seasons, Irish actress Amanda Burton played the icily dour Doctor Samantha Ryan, a gifted yet remote forensic pathologist who was in no way whatsoever ripped off from Patricia Cornwall’s latest novel. Burton must’ve eventually done something outrageous, like crack a joke on the set, because at the start of season eight, they chucked her like yesterday’s embalming fluid and handed the show over to Doctor Leo (William Gaminara), a forensic toxicologist (specialty: poisons and poisonous substances) who, with his sour-lemon enema face, is perfect as Ryan’s no-sense of humour replacement). Also along for the ride is newbie recruit Doctor Nikki (Emilia Fox), a forensic anthropologist (specialty: bones and skeletons and explaining her interest in obtaining Victoria Beckham as a living case study). Doctor Harry (Tom Ward), a forensic psychologist (never ever accept his offer to ‘pick your brains’!), provides the show’s sex appeal, looking as he does like Clive Owen, if Owen used the same cosmetics consultants as The Joker.
This season sees the Three Stooges battling bureaucracy to work out whether a controversial artist killed himself or was framed (see what I did there?!); autopsying drowned refugees to find out who put them on a rickety, leaking boat into the middle of nowhere (John Howard, account for your whereabouts!); and putting the brakes on a killer who uses his car as a weapon.
