Episode 1

Lana Washington and Joel Nutkins get the call that opens the first series: a possible bomb factory on a London housing estate. The two explosives officers are sent in as part of a Met counter-terrorism operation, and the episode stays with the immediate aftermath, the estate sealed off and the initial response team managing a volatile situation while everyone works out what they are actually dealing with. A bomb factory in a block of flats is a particular kind of nightmare, the sort that puts residents and responders on edge at once.

The strength here is the ensemble. Vicky McClure's Lana is calm competence in a heavy protective suit, and Adrian Lester's Joel is the steadier, older presence beside her. Around them the operation has its full complement. Inspector Lee Robins (Cal MacAninch), DI Thom Youngblood (Mark Stanley) and DI Samira Desai (Manjinder Virk) all have boots on the ground, with PS Carney (Michael Akinsulire) and PS Brown (Gwynfor Jones) among the constables. Danny (Eric Shango), Pete (Tom Stokes) and Angie Phelan (Claire Lams) fill out the estate side of things, reminders that this is somebody's street as much as it is a crime scene. The procedural detail does a lot of the work here, from the weight of the kit to the careful language of the radio.

Daniel Brierley wrote it, and Gilles Bannier directed it. The tone is set early and held, tense and businesslike. There's no glamour in this kind of work, and the show is honest about that. McClure and Lester make a believable team, two professionals who trust each other without needing to say so.

But the episode's real job is introduction. It tells you who these people are and what the work demands of them, and it does so without fuss. Openers are hard to judge fairly, since half their job is groundwork for what follows. Even so, this one makes you want the next episode. For anyone who likes their crime drama procedural and unshowy, that is a solid start.