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ITV's Winter, starring Richard Armitage, arrives with cast details and mixed reviews

ITV's six-part Bristol-set forensic drama Winter, led by Richard Armitage as a pathologist, began on 30 September. Radio Times listed the cast, and both Radio Times and the Guardian reviewed it as derivative but watchable.

2 outlets · 1L · 1C · 0R First reported Account updated
Image: Radio Times
Image: The Guardian

1 / 2

The story, neutrally told

Winter is a new Bristol-set forensic crime drama on ITV, with Richard Armitage as the pathologist Dr Ethan Winter. Annabel Scholey plays DI Lauren Bell and Jamie Kenna plays DS Ellis Daldry. Carlotta Banat, Josh Barrow, Adwoa Akoto, Jay Taylor and Rishi Rian also appear, according to Radio Times. The official synopsis says Winter is tormented by a violent death ten years ago of someone close to him. A recent suicide bearing a chilling clue that echoes the earlier death reopens the matter.

The Guardian describes the decade-old murder of his fiancée as the series' narrative backbone, alongside a new self-contained crime each episode. The series is six episodes long and is based on the French thriller Balthazar. Radio Times says it was adapted by Eagle Eye Drama, the company behind Professor T.

Radio Times's reviewer David Brown calls the drama unoriginal, saying it ticks every box on the "maverick checklist" and echoes the BBC's River. The Guardian's Sarah Dempster calls the script "a thing of string and glue" and the drama "daft", but praises the production values and the gripping dead-fiancée storyline. Both reviews praise Armitage's voice and screen presence while mocking the lead character's maverick clichés.

Winter is available on ITV and ITVX from 30 September.

Every sentence links to the reporting it rests on.

Left1 outlet

Framing
A comic, affectionate review that mocks the maverick-pathologist clichés while recommending the drama as guilty-pleasure viewing.
Emphasis
Armitage's physicality and delivery, the melodrama, and the high production values.
Leaves out or plays down
No cast list beyond the main leads and no mention of the production company.
Charged language
“potboiler”“ferociously watchable”
For example
“It’s a potboiler in a belted trenchcoat.” — The Guardian
“as ferociously watchable as it is unnecessarily expensive” — The Guardian

Centre1 outlet

Framing
A practical cast guide with character and career background, followed by a review calling the drama derivative.
Emphasis
Who plays whom and their earlier roles; in the review, the drama's debt to other crime series such as Silent Witness, River and Midsomer Murders.
Leaves out or plays down
The cast guide gives no critical assessment. The review gives little credit to the production values or the dead-fiancée storyline that the Guardian praises.
Charged language
“unoriginal”“maverick checklist”
For example
“Here's the full cast and who they play.” — Radio Times
“the plot proves as fresh as the corpses he's working with” — Radio Times

Right0 outlets

No right outlet in our sources has covered this story yet.