Suspects is a British police procedural television series first aired on Channel 5 on 12 February 2014. Set in London, the series follows DS Jack Weston, DC Charlie Steele and their senior DI Martha Bellamy of Greater London Police while they investigate different types of cases including murder, attempted murder, missing people, drug overdose, child abuse and sex crime. Most of the show's dialogue is improvised in order to make it seem natural. The actors have a detailed story document and perform from there. The show is filmed within the former London Electricity Building on Cambridge Heath Road, London. The building doubles as Brownall House which features in ITV's comedy series The Job Lot.
Overview
Suspects is set in a London police station. DS Jack Weston, DC Charlie Steele and DI Martha Bellamy investigate murder cases, missing person's reports, drug overdoses etc. Within every episode a crime is solved in a documentary style. For the second series the concept of the series was changed, so that cases are not resolved in a single episode. The actors don't have a script. The plot is described roughly, and actors improvise the dialogue and their reactions. Through this production style the series should be more realistic and investigative. The series hardly deals with the private lives of the investigators, it is about the police work. An episode is shot within two and a half days, which means that one scene is filmed within only 18 minutes. The main cast prepared for the series by taking a police workshop with a retired police officer for several weeks. They learned interview techniques, police terminologies and general day-to-day lingo.
The complete first series was released on DVD on 1 September 2014.
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Series 2 (2014)
The second series consisted of 4 episodes, arranged as two 2-part stories, with each story being originally shown on consecutive days in the same week.
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Series 3 (2015)
A third series aired in January 2015.
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Series 4 (2015)
A fourth series began broadcasting weekly on Wednesday 25 November 2015. It consists of four stand-alone episodes.
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Series 5 (2016)
A fifth series of the show aired in 2016 without main cast member Fay Ripley, who, due to her filming commitments for the new series of Cold Feet, was unable to reprise her role as DI Martha Bellamy. Bellamy is found dead, having been fatally shot, in the first episode of the series. Three new cast members were introduced to the main cast with the initial premise of investigating her murder. Lenora Crichlow stars as DS Alisha Brooks, James Murray stars as DCI Daniel Drummond, and Perry Fitzpatrick stars as TDC Gary Roscoe. For the first time in the series history, all six episodes focus on one ongoing story, entitled The Enemy Within.
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Dutch and German Remakes
In October 2016 it was announced that Suspects would be getting a German remake. The company UFA will produce the remake for RTL Television. In March 2017 a Dutch remake of Suspects was released in the Netherlands on Videoland, produced for RTL Netherlands.
