Siobhan Finneran Saves a Messy & Cluttered 'Protection'
Television police dramas tend to follow a predictable formula. There’s the dogged detective who solves the crimes no one else can. Said detective is usually great at their job but very bad at their romantic life. They also typically are juggling problems at home. The new BritBox series Protection doesn’t veer from this successful model. The series even has a character who whispers dramatically to another character, “Don’t trust anyone,” and the obligatory being chased through the woods by a man with a gun. All the pieces of the cop drama formula are here, but the execution is murky.
DI Liz Nyles (Siobhan Finneran) is a police officer charged with guarding people in the witness protection program. Her latest assignment is protecting Jimmy McLennan (Kris Hitchen), an accountant/money launderer who has turned against his former crime boss/employer, Eddie Crowther (Alec Newman). Crowther is a cool and calm villain with a wife and child who are seemingly oblivious to his drug cartel.
Jimmy has a wife and a 12-year-old daughter named Amy (Tilly Kaye). Amy is not thrilled with having to leave her life behind and, like many tweens, doesn’t always make the smartest choices. Early on in the six-episode series, the safe house is attacked, which seems impossible since only Liz and her partner, DS Raj Kholi (Chaneil Kular), know the safe house’s location. Even stranger DS Paul Brandice (Barry Ward) is found injured at the safe house. Why was he there when he had nothing to do with the case? Complicating things even more, Liz was having an affair with the very married Paul.
