British drama has a bad rap round here, it has been a long time since a British show grabbed my attention, however in fairness it has not been since the second episode of Breaking Bad that I have really felt hooked on a new show. ITV’s latest offering is Identity, a drama that follows the investigators involved in identity fraud.

The series opens with a bang, a policeman lying in the street having been shot during a tense stand off in a suburban street. The man responsible for the shooting claims he is the victim of identity fraud and that someone else has committed the crimes he is accused of, of course that doesn’t explain why he shot a policeman. Anyway when the siege has ended the Identity Fraud squad enter and start to chase down leads to find the man responsible. Paper trials and witness interviews all climax in an action chase scene around a school.

The problem with bad cop shows is that the protagonist can be a bit of a mystery, this is a classic example of not knowing who we are suppose to care about. Do we care about the man who had his identity stolen, but then shot a cop? Do we care about the investigators who are just doing their job? Do we care about the identity thief who had his own life taken from him? Me personally I didn’t care about any of them, no one really had to make a tough choice and there was no stake raising towards the end, nothing to lose and nothing to gain. Even though the camera kept whizzing around, at the end of the day it was all about following receipts and making connections that is all pretty dull when that is being spoon fed to you and crazy action chases mean nothing if you are not emotionally involved. In the end we learn that one of the Fraud Squad is leading a double life in a Turkish criminal gang, so we can presume that this will provide the series arc, but why just throw it in in the last three minutes of the show? It comes from nowhere and feels like an after thought.

Identity fraud can screw up your life, there is no doubt about that, but trying to capture that from the point of view of the investigators is just dull, no matter how many chases you throw in. With another five episodes to go it is unclear what more they can throw at the screen to fool me into thinking that identity fraud is a ticking time bomb of destruction. Watch the trailer below to see just how overblown this is…

Created / Written by: Ed Whitmore
Directed by: Brendan Maher
Starring: Aidan Gillen, Keeley Hawes, Holly Aird, Elyes Gabel, Shaun, Patrick Baladi
Date premièred: 5 July 2010 – ITV1