I had never seen LONDON KILLS in any medium before this review. No BBC. No Acorn TV and no DVD. So its with this, I get to see London’s elite murder squad trampling around the cities streets, solving murders and bringing bad guys to task. Acorn TV has hit on a crime drama that is popular certainly, however is it all it courts to be?

LONDON KILLS is a bunch of things. It starts with a gripping suicide murder. DI David Bradford (Hugo Speer) is a man on the mission. DS Vivienne Cole (Sharon Small) is the centre pin to the team. DC Rob Brady (Bailey Patrick) is the old hand and DC Billie Fitzgerald (Tori Allen-Martin), the new name and detective on the team. David is rebellious by nature and overcoming tragedy. Vivienne confronts him about his choices and behaviour. This conflict underlines everything.

Over four series it becomes a blitz of 5 episode series. When the first series starts slow, it builds up a head of steam. Constructing the team, building the process, understanding the method. The second eclipses the first with an ease. Its better written but begins to wrap around stories that are about the team and its divisions. Series three has two very good episodes, laying the foundation for a shock. The fourth is excellent. For a series running for so long, it stands up. Rounding on and standing tall. Each series explore dynamics, politics, personality in ever more spontaneous ways but does feel more over written as the successes build. The cases are very satisfying in the whole. They are often easily resolved without a weigh of question. The cast of characters and the ebb and flow of life in a city that never really snoozes, let alone sleeps, kept me connected.

In the main the series and the boxset deserves credit. Its a cast and a content components that deliver the value. Would I return to it? Well maybe not. Its stories are servicing the narrative of the group but they do, in the occasion, offer us value.

Now it is Acorn Media International releasing the complete set on DVD, hot on the heels of its BBC transmission which aired on the 27th October 2023.