Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Martin Shaw, Lee Ingleby, Lisa McGrillis, Jeremy Swift, Lucy Liemann, Emily Woof, Derek Riddell, Denise Welch, Alice Blundell, Paul Charlton, Mickey Cochrane, Christine Berriman Dawson, Simon Hubbard, Madeline Knight, Lillian Macardle, Annabel Scholey, Robert Whitelock, Philippa Wilson.

There are few crimes that are as horrific as murder, and yet when they take place the nation is divided it seems between those who with macho intent deliver a sermon well worn and so outdated that it barely deserves repeating and those who understand how the unbalancing of the act can have on the local area, the people and nature.

In the welcome return of Inspector George Gently to the spring schedule, the opening episode of the new series, Gently With The Women, was one that arguably was perhaps the most intense and full of grave potential than any of the previous chapters had dealt with so far.

Gently With The Women draws unnerving parallels with the Yorkshire Ripper murders which would come to the fore in the following decade and the treatment of some of the women who fell into the evil clutches of Peter Sutcliffe. Whilst there is a huge room for improvement in the way that such crimes are investigated, to see how the police operated in such a callous, almost boy’s club, persistent attitude to sex-workers and women who may have arguably fallen on hard times and turned to prostitution for whatever reason; strikes a chill down the spine that such attitudes were not only seen but tolerated.

The triangle of dishonour in the investigation that evolved between the right thinking George Gently, the naive and sometimes boorish John Bacchus and the despicable Inspector Walter Nunn was well played out and with the determined W.P.C. Rachel Coles sitting between all three and passing feminine moral judgement upon them, the scene was truly set for an explosive finish, one in which the reliable detective programme didn’t disappoint in delivering.

With Lisa McGrillis starting to feel very comfortable in the role of W.P.C. Coles and a delightful, if creepy, performance by Jeremy Swift as the bus depot supervisor, Gently With The Women was not an episode to ease the viewer back into the realms of County Durham in the late 1960s, this was a calculated and targeted attack on the senses, on the moral calling of those who assert their so called superiority based on their gender.

A terrific episode in which to welcome Martin Shaw’s George Gently back with.

Ian D. Hall