--- title: "Scott & Bailey" year: 2011 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/scott-and-bailey" fi1m_id: "scott-and-bailey" imdb_id: "tt1843678" tmdb_id: 39551 wikidata_id: "Q6332944" fi1m_score: 75 critics_reviews: 2 published: "2026-10-07T15:47:55.318561+00:00" updated: "2026-10-07T15:47:56.024283+00:00" region: "AR" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Scott & Bailey (2011) Created by Sally Wainwright, Diane Taylor · 45m · Crime, Drama ## Identity Scott & Bailey - **Canonical:** https://film.one/tv/scott-and-bailey - **Type:** Series - **Fi1m ID:** scott-and-bailey - **IMDb ID:** tt1843678 - **TMDB ID:** 39551 - **Wikidata ID:** Q6332944 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1843678/, https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/39551, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6332944 **Fi1m score: 75** · Critics: 2 of 6 reviews so far *In a sentence:* Two detectives who can read anyone across an interview table and nobody across a dinner table > Sally Wainwright and Diane Taylor’s Manchester procedural opens with a boyfriend plot nobody should have signed off, then settles into a police series acted with unusual care, built on Lesley Sharp across an interview table and Amelia Bullmore running a briefing. ## Synopsis Manchester. DC Rachel Bailey (Suranne Jones) and DC Janet Scott (Lesley Sharp) investigate murders for a team run by DCI Gill Murray (Amelia Bullmore), who swears, delegates and misses nothing. Rachel is clever, impulsive and about to be dumped by her boyfriend Nick Savage (Rupert Graves), who turns out to have a wife she knew nothing about. Janet is older, steadier, married to Adrian (Tony Pitts), and better than anyone in the building at getting a suspect to talk. DS Andy Roper (Nicholas Gleaves) sits a desk away. Rachel wants to be the detective everyone can see she could be; what stands in the way is Rachel, and the men she chooses. The first series runs to six episodes of 45 minutes. ## Review *Scott & Bailey* sets out to do an ordinary thing properly. Two detective constables in a Manchester murder squad, a boss who is good at her job, a case most weeks, and the kitchens and cars and bedrooms they go back to when the shift ends. Sally Wainwright and Diane Taylor created it, it ran for five series from 2011, and its episodes last 45 minutes. It starts badly and becomes one of the better police series British television has produced, and the gap between those two facts is the subject of this review. The first episode is the problem, and we may as well deal with it. Rachel Bailey (Suranne Jones) is dumped by Nick Savage (Rupert Graves) and discovers he has a wife, and the script arranges for the week’s case to echo her humiliation so neatly that we winced. It is a soap plot wearing a lanyard. The Guardian’s review at the time found the whole thing clunky on the strength of that strand, and about the strand it was right. About the series it was wrong, and anyone who stopped there missed what the writers were building underneath. What they were building is Janet Scott. Lesley Sharp plays her as a woman who has learned that if she waits long enough, the other person will fill the silence, and the interview scenes are where the series earns its keep. The directors, Sarah Pia Anderson, Noreen Kershaw and Simon Delaney among them, keep the camera low and still across the table and let Sharp do the work with a pause and a glance at her notes. We found ourselves holding our breath in a room containing a table, two chairs and a man who did not want to talk, which is not a thing we expected from a weeknight procedural and is the moment we stopped taking notes. Amelia Bullmore’s Gill Murray is the other reason to stay. Bullmore also writes for the series, and you can feel a writer’s hand in how Gill is allowed to be brisk, rude and right, and how rarely she is punished for it. Television bosses are usually obstacles; Gill is a professional, and the show takes pleasure in watching her run a briefing. The scenes with the three women in a car or a corridor, trading information and insults at the same speed, are the sharpest writing in it. Jones has the harder part. Rachel is bright, reckless and incapable of leaving a bad idea alone, and Jones plays her without once asking us to forgive her. Her sister Alison (Sally Lindsay) carries the family weather, and Tony Pitts gives Janet’s husband Adrian a tired decency that makes their house feel lived in rather than written. Nicholas Gleaves’s Andy Roper watches from the next desk with an expression we will leave you to read. Fabian Wagner shoots it plain: grey northern daylight through office blinds, strip light on the incident board, the inside of a pool car in the rain. Nothing is lit to be admired, and that is the correct decision for a series whose point is that the work is the point. The cases themselves are uneven. Some are tightly made; others reach for a twist the hour cannot carry, and the later series lean harder on the detectives’ private lives than the early ones did. The fifth series, at three episodes, is more a farewell than a run. The reviews so far were cool, and one was hostile, and most of that judgement rests on the first hour. We think they were wrong because they reviewed the wrong strand: the boyfriend plot is a fault in a series that is otherwise about competence, and competence is what the next thirty-two episodes deliver. Against the genre’s usual options, the haunted loner or the quirky pair, this is a show about a team of adults doing a difficult job and then going home. Give it two episodes. The first is the worst it ever gets. The 15 certificate is for language and for what the squad finds in people’s houses, not for anything shown with relish. If Sharp across an interview table does nothing for you by the end of episode two, it is not your series, and we would be surprised. *Fi1m score 75, published 7 October 2026.* ## Straight answers **Is Scott & Bailey worth watching?** *Scott & Bailey* is worth watching for anyone who wants a police series about competent adults doing a difficult job, and we scored it 75. The first episode is the worst of it, built on a boyfriend plot that echoes the week's case too neatly; give it two, and Lesley Sharp across an interview table and Amelia Bullmore running a briefing will tell you whether it is your series. **How long is Scott & Bailey, and what is it rated?** *Scott & Bailey* has episodes of about 45m. It is a crime and drama series. **Where can I watch Scott & Bailey in Argentina?** *Scott & Bailey* is not on any streaming or rental service in Argentina at the moment. It is available in 6 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily. **How violent or frightening is Scott & Bailey, and is it suitable for children?** *Scott & Bailey* carries a 15 certificate in the UK, for strong language and for what the murder squad finds in people's houses rather than for anything shown with relish. It is not for children, and it is not a frightening series; the tension comes from a silent interview room, not from violence on screen. Older teenagers used to crime drama should be fine. **How does Scott & Bailey compare to Prime Suspect?** *Scott & Bailey* is the team show to [*Prime Suspect*](https://film.one/tv/prime-suspect)'s star vehicle: three women trading information in cars and corridors rather than one detective resented by everyone around her. *Prime Suspect* has the stronger single story, and its first run is the better television; *Scott & Bailey* is steadier across its length, warmer and plainer, and worth choosing if you want a squad to live with rather than a case to be gripped by. **What should I watch after Scott & Bailey?** After *Scott & Bailey*, try [*Prime Suspect*](https://film.one/tv/prime-suspect) (1991, Fi1m 88): Helen Mirren’s Jane Tennison, the squad room this series grew up in. Then [*The Killing (Forbrydelsen)*](https://film.one/tv/the-killing-2007) (2007, Fi1m 84): Twenty days, one murder, a detective in a jumper; the slowest and surest of the lot. ### Reviews we read (2) - **Radio Times**, Sarah Doran (64/100, inferred): The headline presents this as a review of the episode and signals a shocking death. The article body is unavailable, so its verdict and specific praise or criticism cannot be confirmed. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/we-need-to-talk-about-that-shocking-scott-bailey-death/) - **The Guardian**, Sam Wollaston (20/100, inferred): Wollaston finds the series unconvincing and clunky, and doubts he will be excited about the next episode. He singles out Bailey’s implausible failure to notice her boyfriend was married and the mirroring of her personal life in the case as particular weaknesses. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2011/may/29/scott-bailey-tv-review) ## Details - **Created by:** Sally Wainwright, Diane Taylor - **Creator:** Sally Wainwright, Diane Taylor - **Director:** Simon Delaney, Sarah Pia Anderson, Noreen Kershaw - **Writer:** Diane Taylor, Sally Wainwright, Amelia Bullmore, Lee Warburton, Emily Ballou - **Cinematography:** Fabian Wagner - **Producer:** Yvonne Francas, Diane Taylor, Juliet Charlesworth - **Cast:** Lesley Sharp as DC Janet Scott; Amelia Bullmore as DCI Gill Murray; Rupert Graves as Nick Savage; Suranne Jones as DC/Sgt. Rachel Bailey; Nicholas Gleaves as DS Andy Roper; Danny Miller as Sgt. Rob Waddington; Sean Maguire as PC Sean McCartney; Tony Pitts as Adrian Scott - **Runtime:** 45m - **Release (Argentina):** 29 May 2011 - **Genres:** Crime, Drama ## Where to watch in Argentina Not streaming, renting or buying in Argentina at the last check. Also available in: AT, AU, CA, DE, GB, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Happy Valley* (2014): Wainwright again, with Sarah Lancashire, the same patience and a great deal more dread. - *Prime Suspect* (1991), Fi1m 88: Helen Mirren’s Jane Tennison, the squad room this series grew up in. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/prime-suspect.md) - *Cagney & Lacey* (1981): The American original: two women, one desk and a lot of unfinished conversations. - *The Killing (Forbrydelsen)* (2007), Fi1m 84: Twenty days, one murder, a detective in a jumper; the slowest and surest of the lot. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/the-killing-2007.md) - *Spiral* (2005): Paris police and prosecutors, cases that run a whole series, and nobody comes out clean. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/scott-and-bailey