“It’s not procedural, it’s personal.”
Those are the chilling words of DSI Stella Gibson uttered in the new trailer for the heavily awaited second series of BBC Two thriller, The Fall which starts this Thursday (13th November) at 9pm.
The drama first aired last May and gripped audiences nationwide and earned itself the title of being the BBC’s highest-rated launch in the genre for eight years.
What’s that? You haven’t watched The Fall? Then what are you waiting for?!
The BBC clearly feel the same way, and so they have put the critically-acclaimed crime thriller on iPlayer for the next month in order for new and unsuspecting viewers to experience the terrifying and chilling nature of Paul Spector’s killings and leave them wanting more.
The production of The Fall is so clever that it offers viewers something more than your typical murder story – it offers you every angle of the story; the killer, the police and your own. With clever camera angles and point-of-view shots, you really feel like you are a part of it. It also enters your mind and makes you think.
Set in Northern Ireland, Jamie Dornan leads plays the perpetrator, Paul Spector, among a predominately-Irish cast. On the outside he is a loving and caring husband and father as well as a professional bereavement councillor but away from the throws of his everyday life, he is a serial killer; a serial killer whose external life offers him far more pleasure than his ‘normal’ life.
His actions aren’t sporadic or spur of the moment though, they are meticulously planned in such detail that his identity remains a constant source of head-shaking for the police, who have to call in a colleague from London (DSI Stella Gibson played by Gillian Anderson) in order to try and crack the case of his first unsolved murder, that of Alice Monroe.
What makes The Fall so special?
The Fall is unique. It offers audience all of the thrills and heart-stopping moments of a typical crime and murder drama but without all of the blood and gore associated with it. It doesn’t freak audiences out with the images it conveys on screen, but with how it allows us to get inside the heads of the main characters and question their motives and actions.
As the series goes on, it becomes clear that there isn’t much that separates Gibson and Spector. They are both addicts; Spector is addicted to killing; Gibson is addicted to finding and stopping him. They are passionate about what they do and can easily manipulate others into allowing them to have what they want and in this new series, Gibson will try and manipulate Spector into getting what she wants; him behind bars.
This feeling of addiction is passed onto the audience; the show gives us a little bit of something good and then leaves us wanting more, a bigger hit that will induce the same amount of fulfilment and it never disappoints.
The only factor that really sets the two main characters apart is that Spector works alone whereas Gibson has to try and persuade an incompetent department of the PSNI to work with her, as opposed to against her. Having been brought in by ACC Jim Burns who sometimes questions the methods and ideas that Gibson brings to the case, she stands strong and sticks to what she believes in.
The Fall starts on BBC Two next Thursday at 9pm. The five episodes of the first series are available on BBC iPlayer and Netflix.
Have you watched The Fall? Are you looking forward to the next series starting? Let us know in the comments below!
