Prime Suspect: Complete Collection Review

Debuting in 1991, Lynda La Plante’s police procedural provided the British appetite for crime dramas with a formidable new benchmark — a mix of Juliet Bravo and The Silence Of The Lambs — while giving Helen Mirren a signature role as hard-bitten DCI Jane Tennison, hunting serial murderers while dealing with an oppressively male-dominated institution. Hugely influential, if rather dour, the show fearlessly addressed such thorny social ills as institutional sexism and child abuse while putting Tennison through the wringer, especially in the series’ engrossing finale.