review

"It's procedure," said Ted Hoffman, reassuring his client as the officers of the court took possession of his shoelaces, socks and tie. After the unconscionable legal delay inflicted on us by BBC schedulers, the verdict had finally been delivered and Neil Avedon, sulky celebrity clothes-horse, sat wretchedly transformed into convicted hobo, deprived of the sartorial niceties which he might use to string himself up. That particular scene, and Ted's accompanying words, will do for what was best about Murder One (BBC2) - its minutely detailed account of an American criminal trial, from the calculated game of jury selection to the sudden humiliations a jury can visit upon the guilty man. It was all just procedure really, but it was compelling.

So compelling, in fact, that what was worst about Murder One - its solemn, unashamed addiction to melodrama - hardly mattered. It was, if you think about it, a rather unusual thing: a marriage of a notionally realistic form with a baroque mannerism of style. And while it was broadly plausible that Ted should have absorbed the formal cadences of courtroom rhetoric into his every- day speech, you soon noticed that almost everyone spoke as if they were auditioning for a 19th-century costume drama. "Regardless, the enterprise is good for my soul," murmured Francesca Cross, after Ted had expressed surprise that she would pray for her dying husband. Richard Cross himself, so sinuously malevolent that you could smell sulphur every time he appeared, was as elegant in his diction. When he received Ted's forgiveness, after testifying to the authenticity of the tape showing Jessica's true killer, he didn't say "Thank you," he said."My heart is lighter for the knowledge." Even Ted's occasional descents into the vernacular had a certain formality to them. "Now we got us a game," he said, when the existence of the exonerating videotape was discovered, and the line had the lapid-ary clarity of a silent-movie dialogue card. In 100 years, this version of credibility will look as bafflingly codified as a kabuki play.

As for the storyline, it was hardly surprising, after such a long seduction, that a sense of post- coital tristesse should hang over the final episode, in which Roberto Portalegre was arrested for the murder and Neil was released. But at least some of the regret one felt was at the weakness of this conclusion, its sudden capitulation to the Hollywood insistence that narrative justice be seen to be done. I had put money on an acquittal, followed by evidence that Neil actually did commit the murder, an outcome which might actually have tested Ted's ability to deliver moral homilies about the importance of defence lawyers.

But, despite the series' steady attentiveness to the exploitation of justice by politicians, to the rarity of pure motive, it flinched at the last from the harshness of that truth. Justine was welcomed back on board, Judge Bornstein apologised to Neil for saying nasty things about him, Neil saw the error of his ways, Annie turned up to offer hope of reconciliation, and the bad guy went snarling to jail.

Suspension of disbelief, always a delicate flower in this series, had wilted badly when Ted took to burglary in pursuit of the truth and perished outright when he assured Neil "I'm not worried about our fees," but even so, this last all-round distribution of just deserts seemed paper thin.

In real life, of course, justice is harder to come by. For example, Daniel Benzali, whose affectless growl has indelibly stamped the drama, is not to be recalled for the second series, having fallen prey to the clipboards of television pollsters. Quite what will remain without his expressionless, lizardy features and the image of lonely, obdurate rectitude he provided (the very last image was of him, alone in his office), it is difficult to imagine. It is as pointless as remaking Moby Dick without the whale.