Silent Witness
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This article is about a TV series. For the Hong Kong horse, see Silent Witness (horse).
| Silent Witness | |
|---|---|
 Silent Witness main title |
|
| Genre | Crime Drama |
| Running time | 120 Minutes (60 x 2 part stories) |
| Creator(s) | Stephen Brady |
| Starring | Amanda Burton (1996-2004) Emilia Fox (2004-present) William Gaminara (2002-present) Tom Ward (2002-present) |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original channel | BBC One |
| Original run | February 21, 1996–present |
| No. of episodes | 78 (39 x 2 part stories) |
| IMDb profile | |
Silent Witness is a long-running British television thriller series made by the BBC's in-house Drama Serials production department, and screened on the BBC One channel. First broadcast in 1996, it is still running as of 2006 with a tenth series that started broadcasting on 16 July 2006. The drama itself gets very good viewing figures, as on the tenth series (2006), it normally attracted around six million viewers in the UK (from MediaGuardian.co.uk's overnight report). BARB later revealed the final figures, proving the drama's higher successes as they received around seven million viewers each episode.
The programme originally followed the activities of a female pathologist, Dr Sam Ryan (who was promoted to professor part way through the series), played by Amanda Burton. However, Ryan's character departed early in the eighth series in 2004. There had been a succession of regular supporting characters, changing almost every series, but Dr Leo Dalton (William Gaminara) and Dr Harry Cunningham (Tom Ward), who were introduced in the sixth series in 2002, remained in the series and continued as lead characters following Ryan's departure, with Dalton replacing her as professor. A new character, Dr Nikki Alexander (Emilia Fox), was introduced to the team in the eighth series in 2004. She began as a palaeontologist, not a pathologist, and was originally enlisted by the team to help analyse bones. Alexander was later represented as having the necessary qualifications to fill the vacancy for a pathologist left by Professor Ryan, although she was initially stated to have a PhD in anthropology and not a medical qualification. She has, however, since been represented as medically-qualified.
Some early series were set in Cambridge, but it relocated to London after Dr Ryan had a serious brush with the authorities.
The programme is typically made up of a series of two-part stories, usually with six to eight episodes per series. This year saw five two-part stories, making ten episodes in total.
The series is often criticised for apparently showing the pathologist actively investigating the crime. This characteristic of pathologist as urban hero follows on earlier similar series such as Quincy, M.E. on US TV (itself based on an earlier Canadian TV series Wojeck) and is also shared by the continuing CBS series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
The theme music for Silent Witness is a song called "Silencium" by John Harle, and is available from Amazon. In 1998, writer John Milne received an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for the Series 2 episode "Blood, Sweat, and Tears".
[edit] Parodies
The approach of the show, portraying pathologist as having an active role in the crime investigation as parodied by British comedic duo French and Saunders as "Witless Silence".
Dead Ringers also parodied Silent Witness, with Sam Ryan as an overconfident pathologist who makes incredibly specific guesses about the body "Just by looking I can tell that this was a man, aged 35-37, called John, having an affair with his secretary", only to be proved wrong by one of her assistants ("no, that's an onion bagel I got for your lunch"). She then refuses to accept her mistake claiming "Wrong? Oh, I'm never wrong. I'm forensics proffesor Sam Ryan PhD".
[edit] Episodes
- Note: All episodes are two parts (60 x 2 parts = 120 minutes in total for each episode).
Series 1:
- Buried Lies (premiere episode, Amanda Burton's first appearance, her associate(s) were normally guest stars)
- Long Days, Short Nights
- Darkness Visible
- Sins of the Father
Series 2:
- Blood, Sweat and Tears
- Cease upon the Midnight
- Only the Lonely
- Friends Like These
Series 3:
- An Academic Exercise
- Fallen Idol
- Divided Loyalties
- Brothers in Arms
Series 4:
- Gone Tomorrow
- A Kind of Justice
- A Good Body
Series 5:
- The World Cruise
- Two Below Zero
- Faith
Series 6:
- The Fall Out (William Gaminara and Tom Ward's first appearance, ensemble cast established)
- Kith and Kill
- Tell No Tales
- Closed Ranks
Series 7:
- Answering Fire
- Fatal Error
- Running on Empty
- Beyond Guilt
Series 8:
- A Time to Heal (Amanda Burton's final appearance)
- Death by Water (Duo ensemble — Gaminara and Ward)
- Nowhere Fast (Emilia Fox's first appearance)
- Body 21
Series 9:
- Ghosts
- Choices
- The Meaning of Death
- Mind and Body
Series 10:
- Cargo
- Terminus
- Body of Work
- Supernova
- Schism
