From Amazon Prime:
Forensic pathologist Dr. Sam Ryan has an all-embracing, passionate notion of justice that can lead to trouble in her personal and professional lives, but to Sam, each dead body deserves the truth.
Believe it or not, this detective series which takes place in Cambridge, England has twenty-two (22) seasons. In fact from Amazon Prime you can stream seasons 1 through 21. Season 1 offers 4 complete stories, each about 1.5 hours. In seasons from number 2 onward each of the 4 stories consists of two shorter episodes (about 45 minutes) instead of one long episode.
Normally I don’t review until I have finished all the seasons but 21 seasons could take a long time to get through. Unfortunately every story we have seen so far has been so good that we are tempted to binge watch. When wife Kathy wants to continue watching “NOW!”, that is a sign we have latched onto something worthwhile. “Law and Order” was another example of years of watchable entertainment.
Amanda Burton, born and raised in Northern Ireland, plays the stunning and determined forensic pathologist Dr. Sam Ryan (yes, HER name is Sam). Many other actors survive from season to season but Burton is the shining star.
Running through the seasons are her relations with her sister and working colleagues and her love affairs. As is often the case in detective stories (she is not a member of the police department) there is the usual conflict of her personal life with her professional life. An added complication is that she gets emotionally involved not only with her cases but also with various colleagues with whom she has serious differences of opinion regarding her cases.
FIRST AMENDED REVIEW: Sam last appears in Season 8 episodes 1 and 2 entitled “A Time To Heal”. She leaves the job eventually a young woman takes her place. From then on the series goes somewhat downhill: first the plots start to look like any old American gangster story, and secondly the episode descriptions found on the Amazon web site and the descriptions that you download with the episodes are misplaced. We stopped watching at that point.
SECOND AMENDED REVIEW: My advice is now to continue with Season 8. When a story seems boring or mediocre, just skip to the next story. Remember each story consists of 2 episodes. It won’t be long before the stories become better. As of this amendment I am on Season 11 and it is dynamite.
THIRD AMENDED REVIEW: In Season 8 Episode 5 we first meet Dr. Nikki Alexander as a young woman just starting her career as a forensic pathologist. From then on through all of Season 22 she remains in the series whereas almost all the other actors are replaced. For the 15 seasons you actually see the actress Emilia Fox age as do the other actors. This character is wonderful to the very end of the series.
Sometimes grim but always engaging drama! DO NOT MISS!