I was bummed last week when PBS Masterpiece aired its season one finale of Patience (though a second season is on the way) because compelling detective series with novel premises are my weakness (see also High Potential and Will Trent).
Fortunately, BritBox has enough of them to keep me busy for a lifetime. And while we usually only cover new series, BritBox delivers there too, with Code of Silence, a British crime drama that originally aired on ITV and is now rolling out weekly episodes on the streamer. It’s good — a worthy follow-up to Patience, which centered on an autistic civilian consultant. This one features a deaf civilian woman consulting on cases.
It stars Rose Ayling-Ellis (EastEnders), who is deaf herself, as Alison Woods, a canteen worker at a police station recruited for her lip-reading skills. She’s asked to interpret footage from covert surveillance, but is told not to get involved beyond that. Naturally, Alison disregards this, taking a job at a pub in Canterbury that happens to be at the center of a criminal operation.
That operation involves a gang plotting a major jewelry heist. Alison uses her position behind the bar to gather intel while also falling for one of the gang members, Liam (Kieron Moore), despite the warnings of her superiors—Charlotte Ritchie’s DS Ashleigh Francis and Andrew Buchanan’s DI James Marsh.
Alison inserts herself into the case out of desperation. She and her unemployed mother (Fifi Garfield), who is also deaf, are facing a rent hike and possible eviction. With the police short on leads, they reluctantly allow Alison to continue her risky undercover work. Alison believes that being underestimated as a deaf woman gives her an edge, but the situation quickly becomes more dangerous than she expected.
While I initially hoped for a case-of-the-week format, lip-reading doesn’t lend itself easily to that structure, and that’s OK. The season-long arc is packed with tense, engaging developments, and the romantic tension between Alison and Liam — a decent guy clearly in too deep — adds a nice emotional hook.
Rose Ayling-Ellis is fantastic, though I lost count of how many times I yelled at the screen for her to stay away from the gang. Charlotte Ritchie (the lead in the UK’s Ghosts) is solid in a supporting and empathetic role, while Andrew Buchanan, as seemingly always, nails the asshole boss vibe.
Two of the season’s six episodes have aired, making it a great time to pick up a BritBox subscription for this otherwise quiet TV month. You can also check out their other new series, Outrageous, or catch up on Timothy Spall’s Death Valley, which is next on my list. And if you’re in the mood for something cozy, there are 12 seasons of Father Brown, a favorite of both wife and Chris.
