Bergerac review: 2025 remake will scratch that British murder mystery itch

Jim Bergerac has never had to hide to behind another man. There’s a lot about his life that is messy but if there’s one thing he’s confident of, it’s his sleuthing skills.

The Jersey detective is back in a modern remake of the iconic 1980s TV series that ran for nine seasons. Some things have changed (Irish actor Damien Molony takes over the role) but there are also nods to the original including that distinctive crimson red 1947 Triumph Roadster.

It’s even the exact same car, which the new production managed to track down, but unlike his predecessor John Nettles, Molony only got to sit in it, lie in it and stand next to it. No driving, please.

When it comes to British crime dramas, there’s not exactly a drought. More is more is more. But there is a latent love for Bergerac whose legacy still means that to some people, the name Bergerac evokes not Cyrano, Edmond Rostand’s lovelorn poet, but Nettles’ complex detective.

You might bemoan the end of originality in storytelling (a tad dramatic, it’s not) if we keep going back to the same well, but the truth is, it’s been 34 years since the old series ended.

For younger generations with a lack of collective cultural memory, the 2025 show will be the only one they’ve heard of. Those Easter eggs such as the Triumph Roadster and Bergerac’s alcoholism will just be texture not references.

As a “new” series, Bergerac is, at the very least, serviceable, and at its best, an intriguing mystery with a cast of interesting characters.

It’s pretty what you expect – and want – from a British crime series. It doesn’t subvert the genre, it embraces it. If you’re a fan of Shetland, Pembrokeshire Murders, Ridley, Dalgliesh, Whitstable Pearl, Hinterland and Vera, it scratches a similar itch.

When we meet Bergerac, he has been on bereavement leave from the force. His wife died six months earlier, and he has been drowning in alcoholism. His teenage daughter Kim (Chloe Sweetlove) has just moved in with her grandmother Charlie (Zoe Wanamaker), Bergerac’s mother-in-law.

Bergerac has not processed his grief, but when he sees on the news that a young mother from a prominent family on Jersey, the Channel Island where the series is set, has been murdered, he offers to return to work.

He’s nowhere near ready but Bergerac thinks the opportunity to get stuck into a case will pull him out of his funk, restore some semblance of normality, and his boss, despite some reservations, need his investigative skills.

Bergerac is the detective with the most experience in violent crimes, and is somewhat famed in their parts for rescuing a young abductee a decade earlier, and capturing her kidnapper, John Blakely (Stephen Wight).

Bergerac suspects Blakely, recently released, might have something to do with the new crime and, despite being warned off, begins to fixate on him.

The murdered woman, Kate, is the daughter-in-law of Arthur Wakefield (Philip Glenister), a menacing local businessman whose clifftop home was the scene of the crime. Wakefield, his son Julien (Timothy Renouf) and his assistant Margaret (Pippa Haywood) are all hiding something, but that doesn’t make them guilty of Kate’s death.

There are other suspects and complications, including a nosy tabloid reporter (Ayesha Antoine), a resentful colleague (Robert Gilbert) and the department-mandated therapy sessions Bergerac doesn’t want to attend.

The case stretches out the entire six episodes of the season, rather than a week-to-week mystery like the original, and there are twists and turns before the final reveal.

The plotting is relatively lean (a few red herrings, of course) and is shaded in by Bergerac’s personal struggles, especially in trying to be the parent he wants to be to his daughter Kim, and all the ways in which he fails at that and frequently. He’s blind to how he’s traded one addiction for another, and Kim pays the price.

Bergerac is not superman, he is flawed and sometimes makes dumb decisions, and he wields the double-edged sword of obsessiveness, which leads to breakthroughs but can just as backfire. But he is very watchable, and Molony is able to persuasively carry Bergerac’s darkness and dynamism.

UKTV, which makes the show, clearly believe they’re onto something. The series has already been renewed for a second season.

Bergerac is streaming on ABC iview