A rookie detective constable works to prove herself under the command of a brilliant but uncompromising detective chief inspector.
Ambitious rookie Detective Constable Anna Travis (Kelly Reilly) is assigned to a high-profile murder squad led by the formidable Detective Chief Inspector James Langton (Ciarán Hinds). For her first case, she is plunged into the investigation of a young actress’s brutal murder, a crime that soon reveals a sordid connection to a powerful celebrity drug ring. Travis works to prove her worth to the demanding Langton and her more experienced colleagues, DI Mike Lewis (Shaun Dingwall) and DC Paul Barolli (Daniel Caltagirone), while struggling with the grim realities of the case and the complex politics of the squad room.
This series operates in the shadow of creator Lynda La Plante’s own landmark production, Prime Suspect. Marketed as a successor for a new generation, the programme positions Anna Travis not as a pioneer battling institutional sexism like Jane Tennison, but as an inheritor of that legacy, facing the modern pressures of police work. The drama is built on the tense professional relationship between the eager rookie and the cynical veteran. Their dynamic, a mixture of mentorship and manipulation, provides the engine for the narrative across its four series. The production is slick and cinematic, a notable example of the high-gloss, single-story serials that defined ITV’s crime output in the 2000s.
Broadcast: ITV, 11 Episodes, 4 January 2009 – 28 January 2012
Written by: Lynda La Plante
Director: Christopher Menaul
Executive Producers: Lynda La Plante, Liz Thorburn
Producer: Jolyon Symonds
Main Cast: Kelly Reilly (DC Anna Travis), Ciarán Hinds (DCI James Langton), Shaun Dingwall (DI Mike Lewis), Michelle Holmes (DC Barbara Maddox), Daniel Caltagirone (DC Paul Barolli), Celyn Jones (DS Paul Barolli), Amanda Lawrence (Joan Faukland), Nadia Cameron-Blakey (Commander Jane Leigh)
