There is a quote attributed, possibly apocryphally, to the great thriller writer Raymond Chandler, in which he outlines his solution to writer’s block. “When in doubt,” he says, “have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.” Well, as we steam towards the conclusion of ITV’s Sunday night potboiler, Trigger Point, it increasingly feels like the makers are taking a leaf out of Chandler’s book, albeit with one crucial difference. When in doubt, chuck in another ticking time bomb.
You can hardly blame them. After all, Trigger Point is to bomb disposal what Silent Witness is to pathology. It is not a very holistic view of the police force, and just as an episode of Silent Witness can’t go by without Emilia Fox getting her hands on a nice blanched corpse, nor can Trigger Point take up an entire primetime hour without a single explosion. Last week’s exciting denouement at the Five Oaks pub, which raised a lot of questions about the identity of our spree bomber, is in the past. This episode was really all about Billy.
