“Sunday nights are back in business when it comes to tense, twisty police thrillers”

Protection

Protection, ITV1

“Happily, as I expected, Siobhan Finneran as DI Liz Nyles, a witness protection officer with a knotty personal life (quelle surprise), makes this complicated and somewhat crowded drama worth watching. She is an actress who makes the ordinary mesmerising.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“Only one episode was available for review but it seems a tasty setup, everything feels confidently executed and the twists and turns come at nicely paced intervals.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“Things get off to a confident start, with punchy action scenes directed by Simen Alsvik (Lilyhammer). It’s clearly plotted and not filmed in the dark, which makes a refreshing change from half of the shows we’re served these days.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“Packed with internal politics, personal indiscretions and shocking violence, this is one of the best successors (and many have tried) to Jed Mecurio’s almost-definitely-returning BBC runaway hit Line Of Duty. The witness protection unit operates on a need-to-know basis. All you need to know here is that Sunday nights are back in business when it comes to tense, twisty police thrillers.”
Rachel Sigee, The i

“ITV are not trying to do something new with Protection. Quite the opposite: they’re trying to provide living rooms across the nation with more of the same. More of that thing you quite enjoyed a few months ago, but which has largely slipped your memory. Something that, by the summer, you’ll have forgotten about, ready to be replaced in your mind by – I don’t know – a five-part thriller about mounted crowd control officers discovering a plot to blow up Wembley. Nothing new, nothing memorable, but nothing much to object to either.”
Nick Hilton, The Independent

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