No Offence, Channel 4 - TV review: Despite Abbot's winning way with snarky dialogue, the series has become oddly sentimental

The case-of-the-week involved a jogger shot on a bridge and a teacher manipulating pupils for her own sordid ends

No Offence has received mixed reactions from TV critics (Channel 4)

There are also jokes in Channel 4's Manchester-set police procedural by Shameless creator Paul Abbott, but to no avail. With only one episode still to go, No Offence is yet to recapture the electric thrill of its debut. This, despite the fact that the last instalment even recycled the best set piece from that first episode: a fleeing suspect mowed down by a large vehicle emerging unexpectedly at a T-junction.

This time the case-of-the-week involved a jogger shot on a bridge and a teacher manipulating pupils for her own sordid ends. Meanwhile, DI Vivienne Deering (Joanna Scanlan) and her sidekick DC Dinah Kowalska (Elaine Cassidy) teamed up to secretly investigate a theory that the serial killer might be one of their own. Could Miller (Paul Ritter), Spike (Will Mellor) or DS Darren Maclaren (Colin Salmon) really be behind the murder of three young women with Down's syndrome?

Probably not. These coppers get on too well and care about each other too much to allow for much genuine dramatic tension. Thus, despite Abbot's winning way with snarky, sarky dialogue, the series has become oddly sentimental. At this rate, No Offence should settle into its groove by the midpoint of series three, but, sadly it seems unlikely that audiences will hang around that long.