'Ridley's "The Peaceful Garden" Is Not A Promising Start

On paper, Ridley seemed like a show already a home run before it debuted. The series stars Line of Duty's Adrian Dunbar as the titular Alex Ridley, a retired detective whose former protege, DI Carol Farman (Bronagh Waugh), brings him back in a consulting role to help solve the murder of local farmer Jesse Halpin (Rob Mitchell-James), killed on his way home from the pub as he traversed the forest near his home. Farman insists on bringing Ridley back despite protests from her boss DCI Paul Goodwin (Terence Maynard), because it ties back to a cold case he worked on 13 years ago, the disappearance of Zoe Lindsey.

Ridley: If mistakes were made, this is our chance to put them right.

(Yes, all of the dialogue is like that.)

Jonathan Fisher and Paul Matthew Thompson created the series, the latter is the lead writer and a veteran of the super-successful and long-running mysteries Father Brown and Vera, starring older British actors, which have run for a decade and counting. Thompson name-checked how austerity budget cuts have forced retired detectives back into service as part of his inspiration, making this show seem timely and relevant. Add in Dunbar's singing abilities, which the show taps by having his retirement investment be a local jazz watering hole run by current love interest Annie Marling (Julie Graham), and it seemed like this show had all the makings of a series that could run for years.

However, Season 1's debut episode, "The Peaceful Garden," spread across two installments on PBS, is creaky at best. The show doesn't follow through on Ridley being forced back into service; instead, it emphasizes how little he wanted to retire, pushed out due to a breakdown over the murder of his wife and daughter by the imprisoned Michael Flannery (Aidan McArdle), who is somehow also Ridley's man on the inside. The series underlines how much his colleagues wanted Ridley out for not being a team player with the addition of Jean Dixon (Elizabeth Berrington), a fellow retired officer, who pushes Ridley to stay retired lest he discover the corners she's once cut.

Not that Jesse's family wants the police poking around, either. His wife, Moll Halpin (Jennifer Hennessy), says to go away and let her and her daughter Catherine (Alexandra Hannant) grieve in peace while the farming tenant, Lorna (Amanda Lawrence), won't tell the police anything. She's also all too happy to pin the crime on Steve Parry (Conor Lowson), son of pub owner Esther (Pauline Turner), Catherine's secret boyfriend who was on their property that night. When she learns Catherine is dating Steve, it's almost like she's hoping to solve all her problems by having him convicted.

The cold case that brought Ridley back was technically solved at the time, with Daniel Preston (Graeme Hawley), a convicted pedophile, assumed to be guilty via circumstantial evidence, as he was dating Gill Moreland (Caroline Lee-Johnson), the woman who looked after Zoe while her unemployed, unmarried mother Penny Lindsey (Erin Shanagher) twenty pub hopping. At the time, Gill's son Adam (Reece Douglas) had his testimony twisted by Goodwin and Dixon to finger Daniel as the culprit, but the charges never stuck. When Carol discovers Jesse was also a day laborer there, Ridley is convinced his gut was right all those years ago, and Jesse was guilty of kidnapping and killing Zoe.

However, considering Carol's superiors don't want Ridley investigating, he certainly shows up and takes charge away from Carol much too quickly, with little to no pushback from her. That's also odd, as she tells her wife Geri (Bhavna Limbachia) and son Jack (Tareq Al-Jeddal) how much she needs to push to be respected. Yet, even though she solves the case, she drops into second fiddle at every turn around Ridley. Carol's partner DC Darren Lakhan (George Bukhari), doesn't know what to make of Ridley's insertion into their case, though the pathologist, Dr. Wendy Newstone (Georgie Glen), seems glad to see him.

Carol notes Jesse wanted everyone to stay out of the woods and threatened Steve on those grounds, so she and Ridley start poking, only for Lorna to admit Jesse's insistence on keeping people out was due to a little girl's body they buried 13 years ago. It looks like both the Zoe case and Jesse's murder are solved, Jesse murdered Zoe, and either Daniel killed him because they were in on it together, or Steve did it as some misguided desire to free Catherine from her parents' overprotective behavior, that won't even let her attend public school.

But Zoe's photos all show her with a missing tooth, and the body still has all its baby teeth. In point of fact, Zoe is alive and well: she's Catherine. The real Catherine died from falling off a tractor 13 years ago, and Jesse, in a misguided attempt to assuage Moll's insane grief, stole Zoe from her drunken mother to replace their baby. Hence the refusal to let her go to school or see doctors or date -- one blood test would have revealed the truth. Moll admits Jesse wanted to reveal it before the girl was 18 and able to leave; she shot her husband in a desperate attempt to keep the fiction going that Zoe was Catherine alive.

It's not the worst twist, though it was easy to see coming from the beginning. It also ties into Ridley's grief at losing his wife and child since he can be sympathetic to Jesse. However, as Dunbar takes the stage to front a jazz band at Annie's club while Carol reunites Penny with her long-lost daughter, it doesn't feel very satisfying either, more just a rote recitation of cliched mystery plot points. Perhaps the show will improve with time, but for now, the best part of Ridley is definitely the jazz.