The Shadow Line : initial thoughts

Ever since I'd first heard of this, I was looking forward to it.
Chiwetel Ejiofor and Christopher Eccleston.
Together.
In a thriller.
Ejiofor and Eccleston are cop and gangland figure, respectively, both investigating the murder of a possible snitch in a world that evokes, for me, Ian Rankin's novels.


On the strength of the first episode, it's a little patchy though.
The acting is solid. In fact, Eccleston is terrific, inspiring both fear and sympathy. His sarcasm is a joy to behold as is his being a paternal figure. You can see why people want to work for him.
Rafe Spall is magnificent as a sinister (somewhat effette) nephew of the murder victim.


But there's a weird abstract nature to the piece. 
Yeah, you're not supposed to figure out what's going on in the first episode though too much distance can bring its own problems.
And it feels very abstract when the focus is on the cops. It's the dialogue, peppered with oblique references to unrevealed past events. One case in point is when the mother of a dead cop tells Ejiofor that the bullet that killed her son sometime ago is in the room with them.  Just as you're thinking she has a goulish choice in momentoes, Ejiofor's character reveals that the bullet is embedded in his skull.
The dialogue feels Pinter-esque and would work in a claustrophobic setting where everyone knows each other. Here it seems odd.
Less importantly, author Hugo Blick has said he's deliberately kept the city vague so that it's an Anywhere UK. Personal choice but this also snaps me out a bit. (It's always affected my enjoyment of Ed McBain's 87th Precinct).
It's well-written. There's some intriguing themes, particularly memory and the nature of self (Ejiofor's clearly lost some of his memory and Eccleston's wife is suffering from Alzheimer's).
Though that overly cryptic dialogue....


Will I watch more?
Most likely, but mainly for Spall and Eccleston's performances.