The most realistic police drama on television

The crime drama from ITV1 The Towerwhich no longer has a tower but still stars Gemma Whelan as Met police officer DS Sarah Collins, has returned for a third season in fine form. I was slow to warm to these adaptations of Kate London's crime novels, as the first season seemed Exercise of duty a little too obviously in their sights. But they have now become one of the densest and most reliable of the seemingly endless series of police series on television.

While we last saw Sarah in 2023, in the series almost two years had passed since she solved the cold case of a missing schoolgirl. The detective was now happily dating her girlfriend Julie (Camilla Beeput) and still the same hardworking, constantly frowning detective with a penchant for drab outerwear. A bit of an anorak, uncaring souls might say.

The first episode (of four) began with the fatal knife attack on a teenager, and London's knife crime epidemic is the focus of the new series. As is the police response to crime among black people. As an angry Sarah told her boss, DCI Jim Feddon (Stuart McQuarrie), when she spoke out for a press conference about the knife attack: “If it had been a white girl, you wouldn't have hesitated.” (“Old Sarah playing the racism card,” was the reply.)

However, their investigation soon came into conflict with an undercover operation led by DI Kieran Shaw (Emmett J Scanlan), who was working with Sarah's old partner Steve Bradshaw (Jimmy Akingbola), who was now heavily undercover. They were part of something called “Operation Perseus,” which aimed to catch a crime boss whose foot soldiers had been the victims of a stabbing. They didn't want Sarah's investigation to hinder their attempt to arrest the top man. “We're after the king,” as Shaw put it.

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Shaw is also the father of DC Lizzie Adama's little boy, following an affair in season two. Lizzie herself (Tahirah Sharif) is now a fully trained detective, struggling to juggle work and single motherhood, while Shaw is in his last-ditch effort with his wife Mary (Laurie Delaney). He had promised never to work with Lizzie again, and then promptly recruited Lizzie into Operation Perseus. Mary just as promptly kicked him out.

Sharif was deservedly nominated for a Bafta for the first season, and newcomers to the drama would be forgiven for thinking Lizzie is the main character. In fact, she and Sarah form a complementary duo – an impulsive yin to Sarah’s more thoughtful and withdrawn yang. As for Whelan, she is developing into one of our most versatile actresses, capable of bringing comedy to Upstart CrowComedy and drama in KillingEveFantasy in game of Thrones and crime series (this and DI Ray) and played Shannon Matthews' kidnapping mother Karen in the excellent 2017 ITV drama The MoorsideOlivia Colman should perhaps rest on her laurels.

But it was Steve Bradshaw in his undercover role who stole this opening. He was brought in for questioning by the suspicious Shakiel Oliver, the crime boss the undercover team was trying to catch. “One minute you didn't exist, the next you're in my office drinking my beer,” said Shakiel (a suitably menacing Daniel Adegboyega), eyeing Steve. The undercover cop seemed to have passed the test, but a deeper, compromising involvement in Shakiel's gang surely awaits.

The basis of all this was a realistic sense of how police work actually works. The author Kate London spent eight years with the Metropolitan Police and rose from Detective Constable to the Met's Homicide Squad, and she obviously knew her stuff. In the overpopulated market of police crime fiction, such an anchoring in realism The Tower Stand out from the rest.

“The Tower” continues tomorrow at 9pm on ITV1