All the usual genre suspects from film and television studies are present in Jermyn’s monograph including a discussion of realism in Prime Suspect, a discussion of the representation of gender in Prime Suspect, and an exploration of the detective and crime genre as it relates to Prime Suspect. Given that such repetition can prove tedious and tiresome to some of us after awhile it was a welcome relief when Jermyn turned to her attention to matters that are often far too peripheral in contemporary academic film and television studies including the role creator Lynda LaPlante played in creating Prime Suspect, the difficulties LaPlante met while working on and writing the show, the role real life DCI Jackie Malton played in bringing greater realism to Prime Suspect, and the increasingly important role actor Helen Mirren, who played DCI Jane Tennison, the central character in Prime Suspect, played in the production of the show as it went on.
Jermyn’s Prime Suspect is a good if repetitive paint by the theories of the moment in academia book. Prime Suspect itself, which I have been re-watching on Blu ray is, in its first, third, fourth series first episode, and fifth series, extraordinary. Ironically, it breaks certain aspects of the genre mould it has been poured into.
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