My Critique of Messiah
Messiah delivered a stark evolution for British crime drama, elevating procedural convention into ritualistic horror with uncompromising graphic detail.
Ken Stott’s DCI Metcalfe anchored the early serials, his emotional burden lending gravitas to investigations that crossed lines many contemporaries shied from.
Yet its unflinching gore and reliance on religious symbolism occasionally tipped into spectacle, testing dramatic credibility against shock value.
While peers like Life on Mars later reframed policing through nostalgia, Messiah insisted on bleak realism and moral ambiguity.
For modern viewers, the series remains a formative, if punishing, study in how far primetime television could stretch its darkest impulses.
Principal Characters & Performances
Detective Chief Inspector Redfern “Red” Metcalfe
For the first four serials, the series is anchored by Ken Stott‘s portrayal of DCI Red Metcalfe. Stott brings a profound, weary gravitas to the role, crafting a detective who is both a brilliant investigator and an emotionally burdened man.
Metcalfe’s personal life is a constant, quiet counterpoint to the horrors of his work. His marriage to his deaf wife, Susan, played with subtle strength by Michelle Forbes, is a central pillar of his character.
This relationship, along with the fraught dynamic with his brother Eric, grounds the series. Stott’s performance never allows Metcalfe to become a mere puzzle-solver.
He is a man internalising the darkness he witnesses, his resolve tested by cases that increasingly blur the line between professional duty and personal trauma.
His investigative style is intuitive and dogged, leading a tight-knit team through some of the most disturbing crimes imaginable. Stott’s Metcalfe is the definitive heart of the series, a complex figure whose moral compass is essential in navigating its bleak landscapes.
Detective Inspector Duncan Warren
As Metcalfe’s right-hand man, Neil Dudgeon’s DI Duncan Warren represents the dependable core of the investigative team. Warren is a solid, by-the-book detective whose loyalty to Metcalfe is unwavering.
This loyalty is put to the ultimate test in the very first serial, where he becomes a pawn in the killer’s game. Dudgeon expertly handles Warren’s crisis when forensic evidence appears to implicate him in the murders.
His performance sells the character’s profound betrayal and confusion, making the personal stakes for Metcalfe intensely real. Warren is more than just a procedural sidekick.
He is the professional foundation upon which Metcalfe relies, and his ordeal early in the series establishes a key theme.
It underscores the vulnerability of the investigators themselves, showing how easily the hunt can turn inward and threaten to destroy the team from within.
Notable Support and Guest Stars
The series consistently featured strong supporting casts that elevated each story. Frances Grey’s DS Kate Beauchamp is a sharp, integral part of Metcalfe’s team from the start, providing a steady and capable presence.
Maxine Peake joined as DS Vickie Clarke in “The Harrowing,” bringing a fresh dynamic to the established unit. For the fifth serial, “The Rapture,” the lead role was reimagined with Marc Warren as DCI Joseph Walker, supported by Marsha Thomason as DS Mel Palmer and Daniel Ryan as DI Terry Hedges.
Guest stars often left a lasting impression. Art Malik and Alun Armstrong brought significant weight to “Vengeance Is Mine,” while Jamie Draven appeared in the early serials.
Even the author, Boris Starling, made a memorable, if grim, cameo as one of the murder victims in the first television adaptation, a nod that dedicated fans appreciate.
Key Episodes & Defining Stories
Messiah I: The First Killings (Part 1)
This is where it all begins. The premiere episode immediately establishes the series’ uncompromising tone with the discovery of a chef, his tongue removed and a silver spoon in his mouth.
As DCI Red Metcalfe and his team, including DI Duncan Warren and DS Kate Beauchamp, uncover more victims, a terrifying pattern emerges.
The killings are meticulously staged to mirror the fates of the twelve apostles. This isn’t just a murder case; it’s a theological puzzle written in blood.
The episode works because it introduces Ken Stott’s Metcalfe not as a superhero, but as a deeply human detective confronting a level of calculated evil that challenges his own understanding.
Fans remember it for setting the high bar of the franchise: complex, symbolically dense crimes grounded by a compelling lead performance and a sense of genuine dread. It announced a new, darker kind of British crime drama.
Messiah II: Vengeance Is Mine (Part 1)
This serial takes the personal stakes for Metcalfe to a devastating new level. The murder of his estranged brother, Eric, forces him to investigate a case where the professional and the painfully private are inseparable.
The killer here operates differently, leaving clues on each victim that point to the next murder method.
This investigation soon reveals a chilling connection to past cases and potential police failures. Guest stars like Art Malik and Alun Armstrong add considerable depth to a narrative that shifts from pure religious symbolism to themes of institutional guilt and retribution.
It matters in the series arc because it fundamentally changes Metcalfe. The crime is no longer an abstract horror; it’s a wound inflicted directly on his life, exploring the consequences of the job in the most intimate way possible and deepening the character’s emotional complexity.
Messiah IV: The Harrowing (Part 1)
Showcasing the series’ ambition, this episode sees writer Terry Cafolla and the team, now including Maxine Peake’s DS Vickie Clarke, tackle a killer inspired by Dante’s Inferno. Victims are punished according to the circles of Hell, their sins matched with grotesquely poetic torments.
This premise requires Metcalfe to become a literary detective, consulting with an academic to decode the classical framework behind the modern brutality. Fans remember “The Harrowing” for its audacious fusion of high art and grim procedural.
It demonstrates the show’s unique willingness to build entire narratives around elaborate intellectual conceits, trusting its audience to follow a trail of clues rooted in 14th-century epic poetry. It’s a hallmark of the series’ distinctive identity: brutally violent, unapologetically cerebral, and utterly gripping.
The World of Messiah
The world of Messiah is a contemporary Britain painted in shades of grey and shadow. Primarily set in London and other English urban landscapes, it feels recognisably real, which makes the horrific crimes within it all the more jarring.
This isn’t a stylised noir version of the city; it’s the everyday world of police stations, family homes, and public markets suddenly violated by ritualistic, symbolic violence. The contrast is key.
The domestic quiet of Red Metcalfe’s home with his wife Susan provides a fragile sanctuary against the chaos of the crime scenes.
Locations are often mundane until the investigation reveals their terrible significance. From a disused hospital turned charnel house in “The Promise” to the historic streets of London, the settings ground the extravagant horrors, creating a pervasive atmosphere of unease where darkness can erupt anywhere.
Origin Story
The series began as an adaptation of Boris Starling’s 1999 thriller novel, produced by BBC Northern Ireland. The first serial, adapted by screenwriter Lizzie Mickery, aired on BBC One in May 2001.
Its success led to further occasional serials, developed as original television stories rather than weekly episodes. Mickery wrote the next two instalments, with Terry Cafolla and Oliver Brown later contributing scripts.
This model of sporadic, feature-length serials allowed each story to be a self-contained event, maintaining a high production value and narrative impact over its run from 2001 to 2008.
Narrative Style & Tone
Messiah is defined by a consistently bleak and brooding tone. It presents dark, adult-oriented crime drama without flinching, known for graphic and elaborately staged crime scenes.
The storytelling merges detailed police procedure with deep psychological tension and moral ambiguity.
Each serial is a complex, multi-part case unified by a powerful central theme, be it apostolic symbolism, Dantean punishment, or systemic failure. The visual style is realistic and grounded, using location shooting to anchor its often sensational plots.
The result is a show that feels intellectually rigorous and emotionally heavy, demanding engagement with both the mechanics of the investigation and the profound darkness it seeks to uncover.
How is Messiah remembered?
Messiah is remembered as a pioneering and unflinching pillar of British crime drama from the 2000s. It carved out a distinct space with its willingness to explore extreme violence and complex religious or literary symbolism within a mainstream BBC primetime slot.
While later serials received mixed critiques on plot logic, the series was consistently praised for its stylish execution, strong performances, and sustained atmospheric dread. Its international sales to broadcasters in France and Germany underscored its impact.
For fans, it represents a high-water mark for psychologically dense, serialised storytelling, influencing the darker, more thematic crime series that followed. It is recalled for Ken Stott’s definitive lead performance and for stories that were as intellectually challenging as they were viscerally shocking.
In Closing
For those drawn to crime drama with psychological depth, thematic ambition, and a refusal to offer easy answers, Messiah remains a compelling and formidable journey into the heart of darkness, both on the streets and within the human soul.