Signs of staleness start to creep in Series 11 of Silent Witness as Nikki ends up in ‘mortal’ peril for the second time in four stories
“Please, you’re letting this become personal”
There’s an easy chemistry that flows between William Gaminara, Tom Ward and Emilia Fox as the core team in mid-career Silent Witness that it seems churlish to criticise. I find their gentle banter and dad jokes just a delight to watch in their office scenes, but sadly that’s not enough to hang a top-rated BBC series on.
So as it is, Series 11 finds itself tackling such wide-ranging topics as military secrecy and medical bureaucracy, neglect of the traveller community and asylum seekers, abuse in both the Catholic Church and in African religious groups, even mad cow disease. The less said about Leo’s white saviour moment the better. And of course, there’s a pronounced divergence from their remit as forensic pathologists.
There’s no point in bemoaning it at this stage really, the team’s regular interference in investigations now an absolute given. But at the point at which Nikki is attacked as she’s nosing around for the second time in the space of just four stories, you have to wonder a) if story ideas are beginning to run a little thin on the ground and b) what her appraisal process must be like.
Top guest appearances
- Adjoa Andoh shimmers in just a couple of scenes as the clinical Dr Falase in ‘Suffer the Children’
- In which Jude Akuwudike also stars vividly as sangoma Willi
- The marvellous Tanya Moodie anchors the investigation in ‘Hippocratic Oath’
- In which Natasha Little’s experimental surgeon is the enigmatic focus, with a coterie of junior doctors including Jamie Parker
- And Hugh Speer makes for a compelling DI of the week with his connections to Nikki’s past in the twisty ‘Double Dare’
