{"id":4025,"date":"2021-09-06T23:00:36","date_gmt":"2021-09-06T21:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1338004"},"modified":"2021-09-06T23:52:14","modified_gmt":"2021-09-06T21:52:14","slug":"silent-witness-episode-1-review-a-gripping-start-as-nikki-is-haunted-by-ghosts-from-her-past","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/silent-witness-episode-1-review-a-gripping-start-as-nikki-is-haunted-by-ghosts-from-her-past\/","title":{"rendered":"Silent Witness episode 1 review: A gripping start as Nikki is haunted by ghosts from her past"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first episode of the new series sees Nikki and Jack called into a high security prison. <\/p>

By Patrick Cremona\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Monday, 06 September 2021 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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After 18 months off our screens, Silent Witness<\/a> made its welcome return to BBC One tonight \u2013 and it\u2019s safe to say the new series got off to a terrifically gripping start. Opening with the dramatic scene of a rebellion at a high-security prison, the episode saw Dr Nikki Alexander (Emilia Fox) and Jack Hodgson (David Caves) called in to assist investigating officer Dan Mason (Kevin Eldon) after an inmate was mysteriously killed in the riot.<\/p>\n

But the most immediately intriguing aspect of this first episode wasn\u2019t so much the death itself \u2013 rather the identity of the victim\u2019s cellmate, Scott Weston. If you\u2019re a long-time Silent Witness fan, there\u2019s a good chance you\u2019ll remember Weston as the gunman responsible for a shooting spree at a local university back in the 2010 doubleheader Shadows. Well, Nikki certainly remembered him, and there\u2019s a brilliant moment when they first lock eyes and the unpleasant memories instantly resurface for Nikki. Throughout the episode, Elliot Tittenser plays the part with a certain chilling menace, and Scott\u2019s hostile exchanges with Nikki make for both a neat throwback and a fascinating conflict with which to start the new series.<\/p>\n

Naturally, Nikki\u2019s past experience with Weston makes it rather difficult for her to view this new case in an objective manner, and she seems desperate to prove that he\u2019s the one responsible for the death in spite of any evidence to the contrary \u2013 especially given an appeal is underway which could get him released from prison early on some, shall we say, rather contentious grounds. It falls to Jack to keep Nikki in check a little, and in doing so we get the first glimpse at what the BBC has promised will be an increasingly close relationship between the pair this series.<\/p>

There\u2019s a great scene between them towards the beginning of the episode, in which Nikki admits to the fact she\u2019s feeling \u201ca bit weird today anyway\u201d since she\u2019s been asked to take over some of Thomas Chamberlain\u2019s lectures. \u201cI miss them,\u201d she says, of both Thomas and Clarissa, and the absence of the two departed characters is clearly felt throughout \u2013 even if writer Lena Rae is careful not to overplay this too much. There is a rather melancholy feeling hanging over the Lyell at the moment though, and it adds another dimension to an already interesting case.<\/p>\n

In addition to Tittensor, Connie Walker also returns as Scott\u2019s mum Pamela Weston \u2013 and she\u2019s found herself the victim of several taunts and threats regarding her son, despite her own insistence that he should remain locked away at all costs. Alas, by the end of the episode Pamela has met a horribly grisly fate, burned alive in her own house, adding yet another mystery to the central case. On the one hand, fingers seem to point towards Scott\u2019s girlfriend Paisley (played by Harry Potter star Evanna Lynch) after she paid a visit to Pamela earlier in the episode \u2013 but is there a chance she was actually warning her? She was certainly speaking with a great degree of urgency when she suggested that she had something to show her\u2026<\/p>\n

\""Scott\"<\/div>
BBC<\/i> <\/span>\n<\/div>\n

As to the central mystery of who killed Jay, it seems pretty likely that despite Nikki\u2019s fixations, someone other than Scott Weston was responsible. So who could it be? Well, we learned at the very end of the episode that despite earlier suggestions that Jay could have perished due to his injuries or hypothermia, the actual cause of death was an anaphylaxis shock \u2013 meaning that he had been exposed to something or another that he is severely allergic to. There are a couple of possible culprits: another of the prison\u2019s inmates, Lewis, is certainly an intimidating, unpleasant presence who was heard previously making death threats to Jay, but again this seems perhaps a little too obvious.<\/p>\n

So what about Leon? The prison kitchen worker admits to having been long term friends with Jay \u2013 having hidden the fact that he grew up on the same estate, and while it\u2019s unclear what motive he might have to kill him, there are two things that mean he can\u2019t quite escape suspicion at this stage. For one, given his previous ties to Jay, he seems more likely than anyone else in the prison to be aware of the deceased\u2019s allergies, while as a kitchen worker he presumably also has access to various allergens that might have caused the shock. Moreover, he was also the person responsible for hiding Jay in the fridge in the first place and so in all likelihood the last person to see him before he died. It still seems a long shot that Leon would have wanted to kill Jay, but it\u2019s too early to rule anything out yet.<\/p>\n