| Collision ITV1 - four star review “It’s a mess,” said DI John Tolin, played by the always engaging Douglas Henshall, at the end of the first episode of Collision, the drama that, ŕ la Criminal Justice, ITV1 is bullying us into watching the channel at 9pm every night this week. But Collision, under the creator Anthony Horowitz and his co-writer Michael A. Walker, is anything but a mess. A pile-up on the A12 involving eight vehicles including a police car has resulted in two fatalities and six others injured. Not only does that leave Tolin with eight lines of inquiry, but the writers with eight pre-crash plotlines to convey. The efficiency with which they, sometimes teasingly, began to do so was commendable. The collision of narratives at the point of an accident is not new, of course. The slightly crass Oscar-winner Crash did it. Nor, even in Essex, would one reckon on a single accident involving quite so many crims: a dodgy white-van man, a secretary indulging in a little industrial espionage, a quiet piano teacher who may be a paedophile, an ironmonger apparently taking his valetudinarian mother-in-law to her death? But they are well-played and we want to know more about them all. This serial lacks Criminal Justice’s moral gravity – but, actually, who cares? Andrew Billen - The Times - November 10th 2009 |