Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Directors: Roger Bamford, Roy Battersby, Paul Jackson, Reel DVD.
Cast: David Jason, John Lyons, Bruce Alexander.
It would be accurate to say award-winning British actor David Jason excels in the title role of this outstanding series.
Detective Inspector ‘Jack’ Frost is based on the series of books by R.D Wingfield, in which the stories are set around and near the fictitious town of Denton. This place seems to be full of disagreeable people, but Frost aided by D.S. George Toulan (Lyons) and most of the police station, hunt down the town’s seemingly endless weirdos.
What makes this series stand out is that you really do care about the main characters, in particular, Frost, who appears to be a lonely man. His one main driver is – his work. His love life is disastrous. Being so preoccupied with his cases, he doesn’t have a lot of time for the women in his life.
In episode one of Series 11, titled ‘Another Life’, Frost returns from his seven months suspension and is immediately plunged into two parallel murder investigations, despite a defective police lollipop causing him the need for major, painful dentistry.
A man’s body is pulled from the canal, with no identifying papers, but £6,000 in cash and a list of numbers on him. Tasked to work with former sergeant and good friend Maureen Lawson, Frost’s investigations reveal not one, but two, separate lives that he led, and how he financed them.
Meanwhile, at a local fridge recycling holding site, a dismembered man’s body is found in one of fridges. All the body parts fit together, except that he has two left feet.
‘Dancing in the Dark’ is the title of the second episode. Two suspicious deaths hamper Frost’s efforts to join a gym and date the fitness instructor, Julie.
The first concerns a man found dead on a waste tip with no identity beyond an empty wallet, seemingly a mugging victim. However, his wife comes to report his disappearance and Frost, in following through, is intrigued to learn that her sleep
therapist is rather more than just the concerned friend he professes to be.
The other body is that of an escort named Heather, found in a hotel room booked by married businessman Stephen Richford. He denies murder, but confesses that he was shocked to realise what she did as she was a student friend of his daughter. Later he is found dead in his car.
There is only one episode in Series 12. Titled ‘Near Death Experience’, Father Rose is found covered in the blood of a murdered woman, the death bearing the hallmarks of a ritual killing, and Detective Sergeant ‘Razor’ Sharpe (Philip Jackson) is drafted in to assist Frost, having investigated a similar death in his own area.
Frost believes the priest is more involved than he is letting on even though the dead woman’s family feel that her ex-boyfriend is to blame. A glamorous profiler joins the team and rightly suggests that they are dealing with a serial killer.
