it's main character FITS has to win the anti-hero of the decade award. he's overwheight, with severe drinking and gamblibg problems and all the charm of a wild bull. however he has eneough charisma and raw power to have women fighting over him and viewers crying out for more. fits is a psychlogist with an amazing insight to human behaviour, and the charming abbility to break pepole under inturegation. his own brand of fact finding through human cracking has been branded on a few ocassions as emotional rape. these scenes are usually the strongest in the series . just one person against another playing a wierd game of verbal chess. it's in this where the amazing abilities of both the writers and the actors really burst in your face.

both the cases and the subplots will usually shock you. this show give the viewer no discounts. when they introduce you to something bad, it won't be toned down in any way. in one of the last story arcs , in an insane burst of cretivity and cruelty the creators of the series, have decided on the rape of fits's partner and lover jane panheligan. this is portrayed in the most harsh, awful way i ever saw it done. fits confronts a suspect whose wife was raped. he acuses the man of feeling impotent and lost. that feeling led him to beat a helpless man. while fits raves and shouts these acustions we catch glimpses of his lover being raped. this will later lead to these exact same emotions in himself. what started out as real nasty stuff got a hell of a lot worse when panheligan finds out who the rapist is by whiffing his perfume (he was wearing a mask). it is another policeman, and a major player in the series jimmy beck. but she has no proof, and he denies it. thing keep on getting worse and worse until they resolve in the baddest meanest ending possiblle. i viewd these six chapters, with my mouth wide open, probably drooling all over myself in the procees.

all i can say abot robbie coltrane is that he was a BRILLIANT casting choice. nothing he did before has pointed to such an amazing talent (sorry robbie). taking this chance was probably the greatest thing this series have done. coltrane has an amazing presence. he fills the room, he shouts, he mutilates, he tortures pepole, and during all that time you simply must love him. = human and weak on one hand, and an all knowing destructive force on the other, he simply rules your screen.

both coltrane the show's cretor jimmy mcgovren are considred as deities in our household. these pepole along with the directors writers and amazing cast are responsible for some of the most powerful stories told in any media. while usually tv feels inferior to the cinema, cracker beats the crap out of every movie i saw in along while, and it's free too. the only problem with this series is that there isn't eneough of it to go around. trying to do the best damned product they can, the show's schedule is quite sparse. there were less than 30 episodes produced. but every one is no less than a masterpiece. the latest one is supposed to be filming in hong kong these days. it ought to be good.