Siobhan Finneran plays a tough-as-nails witness protection officer in ITV’s new drama. Here’s our Protection episode 1 review.
The TV landscape is filled to the brim with expensive shows from the likes of HBO, Netflix and Disney+. By now, even the biggest Hollywood stars have also migrated over to the small screen. In that sense, the new ITV drama Protection – which is relatively low budget, and doesn’t contain any A-list actors – feels like a welcome throwback.
The beginning of Protection episode 1 informs us that at any given moment, 3,000 people in the UK are under the witness protection programme. Siobhan Finneran plays Liz Nyles, a no-nonsense witness protection officer tasked with ensuring the safety of a family whose father is about to testify against a UK crime lord.
If everything went well, there would be no Protection, so naturally, the family’s location and identity is breached and a lot of bad things happen. However, what makes things more complicated is that another officer, who wasn’t working on the case, is found on the scene, severely injured. To make matters even worse, Liz has been having an affair with him.
Episode 1 is full of heavy exposition as the plot is set into motion. A lot of it is a bit too cliched, especially as a character mumbles “It’s not like it seems” and “don’t trust anyone”. The series consists of six episodes in total and I’m relatively sure all episodes are going to be full of twists and turns. Episode 1 throws everything but the kitchen sink on the screen in terms of plot and it’s a lot to take in. We’re introduced to an awful lot of characters, most of whom leave little impression.
One of the series’ plot threads revolves around Liz’s own father. A former police officer himself, Sid has recently had a stroke and is now having trouble with his memory while his body is starting to fail too. All in all, Liz has a lot going on and there’s only so many directions a woman can stretch to. It doesn’t help that Liz’s sister seems a little aloof and unhelpful.
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Finneran is a charismatic performer and it’s great to see more of these prime time shows use women as their main anchors of a show. There’s enough to get hooked on, but the basis of the show feels like something we’ve seen countless times before. It’s unfair to judge Protection based on just one episode, but the show faces a bit of an uphill battle to find that delicate balance between providing the same thrills as its more expensive counterparts while retaining some sort of identity of its own.
The easiest comparison to make here is Happy Valley, BBC’s leading crime drama, also centred on a female officer. Protection aims for that same level of intimacy and violence, but feels slightly trashier, in a good sense. We’ve slipped into a culture where everything needs to be prestigious and serious, but Protection isn’t too fussed with subverting expectations. Instead, it’s just about providing us with an entertaining Sunday night watch with a cuppa and a couple of biscuits in hand. And who doesn’t love that?
Protection episode 1 airs on ITV on 16th March at 9pm, followed by episode 2 on 17th March at 9pm.
