Granite Harbour

This carried on neatly from the previous season (which I had largely forgotten), in that the fallout from the corrupt DI revealed in season two still had a major impact on this story. A good reminder that stories never exist in isolation, even in supposedly episodic TV shows.

This season we have some murdered teenagers, a traveller encampment and the Laird of the estate they are staying on all mixed up in things.

By the end of the second episode it looks like everything is wrapped neatly and plausibly when our prime suspect is found dead! (Fade to black….)

Episode 3 then gets very complicated, with false confessions, misdirections and shock reveals all over the place – even to the extent of confusing me (so who did return the murder weapon to the burnt out caravan and why?)

I did enjoy this – it was not a ground breaking TV event but it was a good story competently told.

Unlike “Shetland” there’s no real sense of place here. If it wasn’t for all the establishing drone shots of oil rig support vessels in the harbour and the Scottish accents you could have seen this story played out anywhere. A bit of a shame as it can be interesting when the locale is almost a character in its own right.

Overall though a pleasant way to pass a few evenings when I was too tired to do anything else. I hope Cora is OK and look forward to seeing her and her colleagues again in season 4.