Thrill seekers, brace yourselves: a brand new British thriller is about to dominate television. The five-part series The Suspect, starring The Hobbit’s Aidan Turner, promises to satisfy viewers with a taste for suspenseful murder investigations. Based on Michael Robotham’s 2004 best-seller of the same name, the new teaser for the crime programme provides viewers with a look into the quick unravelling of the life of Doctor Joe O’Loughlin (Turner) as he falls from public hero to the main suspect. In a riveting preview, we see Joe, a successful clinical psychologist, at the pinnacle of his adulation after he courageously rescues a patient who is about to jump off a building. “Both logical and irrational apprehensions may be conquered.
To do this, we occasionally require assistance “Joe’s voiceover monologue serves as advice over the unfolding drama. As soon as the video of Joe’s bravery ends, another begins showing the unzipping of a corpse bag containing the remains of a woman called Catherine who has apparently been savagely stabbed 21 times. Joe, who has been consulted on the case, is quick to suggest that the girl may have self-inflicted the wounds because of the history of self-injury she has revealed. However, when a detective (Anjli Mohindra) uncovers that the victim was a former patient of Joe’s, his perfect existence swiftly unravels. The doctor, clearly upset, dismisses Catherine as “a patient who grew obsessed with her therapist” when questioned.
Joe and Catherine stand opposite each other in a corridor of his clinic while he makes these remarks, which are overlaid with a problematic sequence. Joe is taken off the case and taken in for questioning, and things soon go downhill from there. ‘I’m not giving them the satisfaction of humiliating me,’ he yells out to his pal. Joe insists, “whoever put me up,” when asked to clarify who he means. Meanwhile, DI Vincent Ruiz (Shaun Parkes) agonises about whether to label Joe a “rooftop hero or sick murderer” as he watches him peer into a dark and rain-soaked house. Peter Berry, who is also responsible for the script for Gangs of London, wrote The Suspect, which had its British debut in August.
With an unprecedented 3.3 million consolidated viewers, it became Channel 4’s most successful drama debut of the year. Camilla Beeput, who appeared in Save Me, Adam James, who played the lead in Vigil, Sian Clifford, who played the lead in Fleabag, and Bobby Scofield, who played the lead in Anthony, are all featured in the programme. Only a few more weeks before all five episodes of The Suspect launch on Thursday, November 3 on Sundance Now and AMC+, giving international viewers the chance to solve the mystery themselves.