The first season of Trigger Point did not so much stretch credulity as blow it to smithereens, which is appropriate, I suppose, for a series that can be boiled down to the concept of “big bomb go boom”. It was infuriating, largely nonsensical and made Line of Duty look like Ibsen. Yet – and there is a yet – every time I watched explosives officer Lana Washington (Vicky McClure) ignoring the very reasonable orders she was given, in order to approach an IED and somehow wriggle out of the situation alive only because someone else got blown up instead, I held my breath, and couldn’t look away.
Amazingly, given the extent of the havoc wreaked in the first season, the considerable body count and her post-traumatic stress disorder, Lana is back in the job, having spent six months in Estonia, training Ukrainian explosives experts on how to disable bombs. The topknot has moved down an inch or so; by season three, if there is one, it might become a ponytail. Not only is Lana back at work, but she is giving a formal speech about the intricacies of the snips and ignoring all orders – sorry, about what it takes to be an explosives officer, or “expo” – and then, just as she says the very words “we have to be on our guard”, a power station goes boom. You can see it from the window of the conference hall, igniting the horizon. What are the odds?
If it has been a case of go hard or go home, then it looks as if Trigger Point has definitely gone hard, harder than season one, even, and that is saying something. It is early days yet but, given her previous bad luck, anyone who has ever met Lana should be on their guard. Fifth cousins twice removed that she has matched with on Ancestry.com, the person who kicked her seat on the plane last night, nobody is safe. Lana is not even back on duty until tomorrow, but she slips on the flak jacket and heads straight to the scene and starts poking around with a big version of a dentist’s mirror.
This is so spectacularly unsubtle that it is almost admirable. At the power station, there are two extra bombs on the gate, so nobody can get inside to douse the main fire that has been set by some sort of insider who has also disabled the alarm. (The fire service decides simply to cut a hole in the wire fence a little distance away, which suggests that the criminal mastermind planning this season’s main arc has not quite thought things through.) Each bomb is attached to a massive yellow Danger of Death sign. Really makes you think.
Is Lana going to disarm these bombs with the calm, collected stillness you might expect from an expo so proficient that they are training Ukrainian soldiers and giving speeches about it? I don’t think it is too much of a spoiler to say that it doesn’t go entirely smoothly. People shout at Lana to get away from the faulty equipment – so much equipment is faulty on this show! – but she doesn’t listen to them, because she is a renegade and doesn’t follow the rules. Again, these are probably the exact qualities you need from someone who deals with highly unpredictable, deeply stressful and inherently perilous situations on a daily basis.
The problem with Trigger Point is that it works as an entertaining TV show only if Lana is great at her job – later, at another site teeming with cleverly planted explosives, she has to think and act very quickly in order to save a life – and also sort of awful at it, because, as viewers, we need to keep holding our breath for as long as possible. It has to hang on to the potential to go either way, as watching a woman doing her job proficiently doesn’t have any dramatic stakes. It is why all great TV detectives are “troubled” and keep having affairs, drinking heavily and ignoring their children.
Trigger Point really is a load of nonsense, but it sucks you in anyway, even if everyone talks like a textbook. “Let’s speak to the security services and see if they can help,” says the new big boss. Maybe big bosses do talk like that, but is it too much to think that a more detailed plan might help? As with the first season, we don’t yet know who is behind the attacks, but it doesn’t bode well that drones are involved, as drones wrecked the second season of Vigil. Still, if you like tension and McClure looking stressed, then this is very much that. Big bomb go boom!
Trigger Point series two is on ITV1 and is available on ITVX
