Drink, loneliness, and the grueling life of a crime fighter are finally catching up with Detective Superintendent Jane Tennison, now clinging to her career so that she can solve one last heartbreaking homicide on Prime Suspect 7, airing Sundays, November 12 and 19, 2006, at 9pm on MASTERPIECE THEATRE on PBS. Check local listings. Helen Mirren returns in the starring role she made famous and that defined a new breed of hard-bitten female police officer, fighting sex discrimination in Scotland Yard on top of killers, rapists, and psychopaths in Greater London. "Yet another brilliant performance from Mirren," wrote Kay McFadden in the Seattle Times about Prime Suspect 6, which aired on MASTERPIECE THEATRE in 2004. "Nowhere on American television will you find an older female character written with the authority, fragility, and sex appeal of Inspector Jane Tennison." Now Tennison is back, pushing sixty, working too hard, drinking herself into oblivion, and facing the imminent death of her father (Frank Finlay, The Lost Prince). She knows it is time to retire, but she has no life outside of her job, which has defined her since she joined the force as an act of rebellion against her parents at age seventeen. Fortunately, Jane still has the respect and admiration of her colleagues, but they can see that her self-destructive course may end up ruining her professional reputation. "Retire, Jane," they signal her. "Just one more case...just one more..." she seems to plead. It starts out as an apparently routine search for a missing juvenile. Fourteen-year-old Sallie Sturdy has not come home and her parents, Tony (Gary Lewis), and Ruth (Katy Murphy), are desperate with worry. To all appearances, Sallie is an exemplary student and athlete, much admired by her headmaster and coach, Sean Philips (Stephen Tompkinson, Lucky Jim). When Sallie turns up dead in a park, the key to the mystery seems to be Sean's daughter Penny (Laura Greenwood), who gives Jane a fleeting glimpse into the underworld of drugs and prostitution that may have embroiled Sallie, who was Penny's best friend. In trying to cultivate Penny as a source, Jane sees in her a mirror of herself at the same age, and Penny briefly becomes the daughter that Jane never had. Together they go to London's Wallace Collection to see a painting that Jane loved from her youth: Strawberry Girl, which shows a poor fruit seller trembling on the edge of sexual awakening-a state of innocence almost inconceivable for Sallie and Penny's generation. Meanwhile, Jane, struggling to control her alcohol addiction, attends an AA meeting, where she encounters her old nemesis on the police force, former Sergeant Bill Otley (Tom Bell, Pollyanna). Much mellowed after six years on the wagon, Otley takes Jane out for coffee and earnestly apologizes for trying to undermine her career years before. Still resentful, Jane nonetheless feels she has chanced on an unlikely soul mate and friend to help her through her troubles. These multiply when an autopsy shows that Sallie was pregnant, and the prime suspect for both father and murderer, Curtis Flynn (Heshima Thompson), daringly escapes from a police raid. When Curtis next turns up, the complexion of the case changes totally-and so does the number of victims. Can Jane keep body and soul together as events spiral into a nightmare of unimagined evil? Prime Suspect 7 is an ITV Productions and WGBH Boston co-production. It is produced by Andrew Benson (Hornblower), executive produced by Andy Harries and Rebecca Eaton, written by Frank Deasy (Prozac Nation), and directed by Phillip Martin (Hawking). MASTERPIECE THEATRE has been presented on PBS by WGBH since 1971. Rebecca Eaton is executive producer. Funding for MASTERPIECE THEATRE is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and public television viewers. For more information about Prime Suspect and MASTERPIECE THEATRE, visit pbs.org/masterpiece.
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