One of my pet peeves as a TV writer is that fans can be too quick to write off a show once their favorite character exits. They’ll claim the show isn’t good anymore, but ask them to back up that opinion, and they’ll offer something vague like, “Well, it just isn’t.” Some of them won’t even have watched the show since. It drives me crazy, because it’s not really fair.
So when Ben Daniels, Bill Paterson and later Jamie Bamber all departed Law & Order: UK, I promised myself that I wouldn’t be reactionary. I would give their replacements a chance before I declared that the show had changed too much for my taste. So I sat on the fence, until I got to “Immune,” which lets Dominic Rowan, Peter Davison and Paul Nicholls out from under the long shadow of their predecessors.
It’s the Bamber vs. Nicholls comparison that we get to take the best look at. When the CPS wants to cut a deal with an armed robbery culprit in order to find a missing hostage, Sam Casey is not a happy man. He spends most of the episode glaring, bristling and snapping. Yes, Sam’s got a temper. Unfortunately for him, so did Matt Devlin. Comparing Sam’s bad mood to the ones Matt had, there’s no real contest. Jamie Bamber delivered Matt’s belligerence with more fire and extra charisma. Nicholls is fine, but he just can’t reach that extra level.
On the other hand, Sam is willing to do things that Matt never would. In “Anonymous,” we saw Matt torn up by James Steel on the stand because he refused to lie. In “Immune,” Sam doesn’t explicitly commit perjury, but he comes damn near close when he tells defense counsel that he did not specifically say the defendant’s cellmate had been murdered. While he makes his displeasure known to Thorne, he’s willing to bend if it ensures that the defendant can be prosecuted. It’s Nicholls’ best scene yet, and he does pretty well with it for a guy who’s only been around two episodes.
“Immune” also finally gives Rowan’s character Jacob Thorne some real energy. Sure, in no way was Rowan going to be as intense and sharp-witted as Daniels (who could?), but Thorne wasn’t much of anything. He simply was. When he was next to Freema Agyeman, she made him look downright flat. This week, though, Thorne is a devious bastard who makes a major omission to have a chance at a conviction, even if it gets him into hot water with friends and foes alike. It’s something that Daniels’ character Steel would have done. It also makes him pretty darn likeable for the first time.
As for Davison, he was so rarely around I wondered if he’d been taking a vacation. He gets the most material he’s ever had in this episode, and he’s good with it. I still think he’s underused compared to Paterson, but at least now I remember that he exists.
I’m still not sure that Law & Order: UK will be as good as it was when Bamber, Daniels and Paterson were around. I’ve not yet warmed to their replacements. But “Immune” gives me cautious optimism. I have a better understanding now of what these actors can do, and who their characters might become. I believe there’s a chance they could all find their place. There’s also a chance that by the time they get there, ITV will have cancelled the series. We’ll have to see what happens.
But I’m not quite as worried as I once was.
Clacked by Brittany Frederick 
on Oct 06, 2011 @ 02:43 EST5EDT
