DI Ray, running over four nights this week, might just be one of that rare species: a police show that says something new.

Low key in tone and atmosphere, DI Ray, cop and show, that is, deserves to be a success. Mercurio ticks another box.

The main reasons to watch DI Ray are Parminda Nagra’s lead performance and the theme of her fighting against bias in her department. We just wish the case being investigated, and some of the characters surrounding Ray, were more compelling.

[Rachita] may not be quite the conduit into South Asian culture that the department is seeking, but she does have an innate skepticism about the presumed guilty. That gives something of a kick to "D.I. Ray," even if its principal agenda seems more about resentment than detection.

Ray is a good character who could have a long television life, but she deserves better scripts and plots than this.

Nagra held her own well enough at the centre of the narrative, and Ryan McKen was excellently simmering as Navin Kapoor, the wrongly accused brother of the dead man’s girlfriend, but many of the other supporting performances fell flat, which distracted from the otherwise authentic world-building.

Despite the wealth of material writer Maya Sondhi (best known for playing police constable Maneet Bindra in Jed Mercurio’s Line of Duty) doubtless has at her disposal, it is used in the service of giving us a police procedural with a fresh perspective rather than didactically. It lends heft to a story that at times moves a bit too slowly.