Prime Suspect

Actress Helen Mirren has been showing up on recent American films often playing the English woman in charge in her supporting roles.  What most people do not know about Helen Mirren's early career is her riveting portrayal of fictional police woman DCI Jane Tennison.  Prime Suspect is a 6 series show that centers on the conquests of Helen Mirren's iconic role.  Jane Tennison is a career police detective who in the first series is given the opportunity to take on a very public serial killer investigation.  She is a skilled intuitive investigator in a very male dominant role which many times throughout the series hinder or blind her progress on the case she is on.  Not only must she deal with her often deviously smart quarry but she often must put up with the many old fashioned detectives who undermine her authority.  Despite the many obstacles and the many bad decisions she makes up for them by her obsessive tenacity to get her prime suspect's conviction.

The show itself survived 6 seasons and covers the major murder investigations that high light the career of Jane Tennison from the case which jump starts her career to her retirement case.  Prime Suspect is definitely a must watch for fans of the police drama genre.