The Jetty Review

The Jetty is a female-centric police procedural starring and produced by Jenna Coleman.

Ember Manning (Coleman) is a Detective Constable in a small town in Lancashire. The town is infamous for the disappearance of Amy Knightly 17 years prior. When Ember investigates an arson attack on the jetty it spirals into a case involving a pregnant teenage girl, the disappearance of Amy, and a connection to Ember’s deceased husband.

Police procedurals are a stable of British TV. There are long-running shows like Vera and Silent Witness, critical hits such as Broadchurch, and Line of Duty was a juggernaut of a show in the UK. At the time of The Jetty broadcast Channel Four had recently released the second season of Suspects and the Merseyside set mystery The Gathering. The Jetty enters into a crowded market.

At its heart, The Jetty was a story about the treatment of girls and women and wanted to ask difficult questions about relationships. There were troubling relationships across the town. The catalyst of the series was when Ember discovered Miranda (Shannon Watson) became pregnant when she was underage and the father was suspected to be much older. This led to Ember needing to answer difficult questions about herself since she was 17 years old when she got pregnant and her husband was older than her. Ember’s daughter, Hannah (Ruby Stokes) asked when’s the appropriate cut-off point for the age gap between a couple. The only answer Ember could come up with was the law said so. The troubled relationships extended to Amy (Bo Bragason) as a school girl who was going out with an older man and it was suspected that he liked his partners young. Amy formed a friendship with Caitlin (Laura Marcus) and it came across as Amy grooming her more innocent classmate. Even Hannah had relationship issues that all too many teenagers experience.

Another reason why the Amy Knightly case was reopened was due to an investigation by Riz (Weruche Opia), a podcaster who reports on cold cases and crimes against women. She aimed to expose predators and the treatment of girls and women in society. Amy’s story was similar to many girls since she was a troubled teen who was taken advantage of by an older man and she ended up grooming another girl into this dark web. This experience brought back memories of the various grooming gang scandals that were particularly prevalent in Northern England. Amy and Caitlin’s half of the story took place in 2007 and this was where many of these sexual grooming scandals were happening. In the modern day, there were issues involving sexting. The show was as subtle as a brick regarding its themes with characters lecturing about how awful some men can be, and throwing out terms like ‘slut shaming’ and ‘victim blaming.’ A certain section of the internet will be raging about it.

The other major theme in the series was about parenthood. There were troubling relationships throughout. Ember wanted to be protective towards Hannah from the pitfalls of growing up and they were both navigating their grief. Ember had a more contentious relationship with her mother (Amelia Bullmore). The detective questioned why her mother didn’t look out for her as a teenager. Amy had a screwed-up relationship with her parents, especially her dad, whilst Caitlin’s mum didn’t trust her daughter’s new friend.

The Jetty was so focused on the themes of sexual exploitation that it wasn’t that interesting as a mystery. There were the occasional red herrings that would be expected from a police procedural and Ember was working through her personal issues, like many detectives on TV, but the disappearance of Amy wasn’t that compelling. The show added some subplots since the mystery about Amy wasn’t enough to substance four hours of television. At times Ember acted unprofessionally since she bent the rules and when she spoke to the victim of an arson attack, she berated him with a load of local grievances.

The series’ strongest aspect was the wit and dialogue. Coleman has shown herself to be capable of playing characters with spunk and determination. She did come up with some great insults, comebacks, and putdowns. Coleman had a great skill for comedy and The Jetty was funnier than expected.

The Jetty was a series with some decent ingredients for a drama and tackling some important issues, but it did not work as a complete piece. Sadly, a wasted opportunity.