Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Cast: Archie Panjabi, Kris Holden-Reid, Mark Rendall, Karen LeBlanc, Dion Johnstone, Patrick Sabongul, Savoa Spracklin, Brit MacRae, Cihig Ma, Thomas Craig, Tyler Elliot Burke, Eric McCormack, Pamela Estrada, Mikaela Dyke, Paula Boudreau, Kominna Parkinson-Jones, Jennnnifer Podemski, Jaedenn Noel, Shailyn Pierre-Dixon, Wesley French, Jake Weber, Lauren Lee Smith, Romaine Waite, Susann Coyne, Lee Clarke, Cindy Sampson, Sarah Swire, Steve O’Connell.
The capacity for human tragedy knows no boundaries when it comes to incompetence and greed from reckless individuals and corporations.
To witness a calamity and assume that it is a complete accident in this day and age could be seen as being hopeful at best, and at worst allowing naivety to rule your decent heart. An accident is a disaster, malicious intent disguised as such chance in misfortune is unforgivable and which should carry a greater weight of responsibility when it comes to sentencing and retribution.
Tragedy is thankfully investigated by people with a high sense of moral resolution, and as the world becomes ever more consumed with cutting corners, of improving the bottom line, those tragedies require the stringent eye of anti-corruption in which to keep the population, the traveller, safe; or at least bring to justice those who see life as cheap and disposable as profits grow.
The third series of the investigative drama Departure shows just how precarious the line between criminality and government secrets can be, and whilst the six-part series feels a little more volatile, less rigid than its two predecessors, it still manages to make the absolute point of how corruption and greed are at the true killers of humanity.
When a passenger ship is caught in a violent storm off Newfoundland, it is up once more to Kendra Malley and her specialist team to investigate the sinking of the vessel, and by due process bring to justice those that have the power to create catastrophe.
The half a dozen episodes are by comparison, relatively calm compared to the drama of the previous two series, and whilst the effects and the premise is believable, the feeling, with a couple of exceptions by guest actors, is that there is little to frame the narrative and really drive home the peril that has befallen the unsuspecting passengers.
A dip in form can sometimes herald the early finale of such a series, and perhaps after a plane crash, a train derailment, and now the capsizing of a large ship, there is inconsequential room for the team to move into; if that is the case then Departure has served its time honourably.
Ian D. Hall