Hit detective drama Professor T has returned to ITV1 for a fourth series starring Ben Miller as highly strung sleuth Jasper Tempest.
Television reviewer Christopher Stevens awarded the returning series four out of five stars, praising its intense emotional dynamics and formidable female characters.
The crime series airs on ITV1, the major commercial television network in the United Kingdom. Lead actor Ben Miller, widely known for his leading roles in British television drama and comedy, portrays an academic criminologist who assists police in solving complex murder cases.
Formidable female characters
Stevens noted that the neurotic detective show features a raging mother complex, with enough psychological puzzles to fill a library. Nearly every male character encountered in the broadcast is terrified of women.
The core cast includes Frances de la Tour as Jasper's overbearing mother Adelaide, Juliet Stevenson as his bossy therapist Dr Helena Goldberg, and Sarah Woodward as his forthright secretary Ingrid. Both Frances de la Tour and Juliet Stevenson are highly acclaimed stars of British theatre, film, and television.
Adding to the formidable lineup of women, Zoe Wanamaker joins the fourth series as Jasper's girlishly boisterous Aunt Zelda Radclyffe. In her opening scene, Jasper mistook her for an intruder until she emerged from the bathroom and announced, "I'm in the absolute nuddy!"
Zelda then compared her own figure to her sister Adelaide, exclaiming, "I could never get into Adelaide's clothes... much bigger t*ts." Stevens remarked that the interaction provided enough material to keep a platoon of Freudians busy for a week, referencing Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud.
Zelda pounced on the first man she met, university dean Douglas Reith, insisting on booking a dinner date even though he had the words "confirmed bachelor" running through him like the lettering in a stick of rock. When the dean failed to turn up at the restaurant, she batted her eyelashes at the man on the next table with more success.
Police investigations and personal grief
Meanwhile, Jasper is grieving the death of his murdered protege Lisa. His therapist, Dr Helena Goldberg, ordered him back to work as a police consultant, while showing signs of taking a more than professional interest in him.
At the police station, Chief Inspector Maiya Goswami, played by Sunetra Sarker, treats Jasper like a bright but socially backward schoolboy. Giving him a pitying gaze, she told him, "I didn't think you could get any stranger, and yet here we are."
Back for a fourth series while series five is already airing in the United States, his first case involved an anxious young man named JC. The suspect had booked a boat trip to scatter his mother's ashes at sea, but his girlfriend had apparently disappeared overboard.
The Professor solved the mystery when he discovered that JC's late mother was a child psychologist who wrote the book on tough love and starved him of affection. When she died, he flipped and kidnapped his girlfriend, locking her up and faking her suicide to live out a control fantasy.
The only woman who does not breathe fire and toast her menfolk for breakfast is DC Chloe, played by Rhian Blundell. Recently promoted to CID, she feels awkward in plain clothes, though Stevens noted she will soon find her confidence when she realizes all the men are terrified of her in what he called a woman's world.
Celebrity MasterChef horror pie
In other television highlights, horror fan Joe Pasquale made a Frankenstein Pie on Celebrity MasterChef on BBC1. The English comedian and television presenter packed the dish with "a bit of everything in it," including beef, onions, and garlic "to keep the werewolves away."
Celebrity MasterChef is a popular culinary competition broadcast on the BBC. Stevens joked that instead of cooking the pie, Pasquale should have zapped the dish with a bolt of lightning.
