Originally made for one of the BBC owned UKTV channels. The Covid pandemic has left the cupboard bare for many television channels.
So Traces has been drafted in to BBC1. Created by Val McDermid who wrote the Vera and Shetland books.
This is part CSI based on a work of a forensic laboratory in Dundee. The first episode sees them investigating a fire at a Dundee nightclub that left three people dead.
It is also about Emma Hedges. She has returned to Dundee to take a new job as a lab technician in the forensics department.
Emma gets a shock when she studies the online forensics course for her job. A case study seems to be based on her mother's unsolved death that happened in Dundee when Emma was a child.
Quiet why Emma chose to return to Dundee given her personal circumstances is anyone's guess. Even more concerning is her option to choose forensics when she is so easily spooked when a woman's body is dug up.
Well Emma decides to find out more about her mother's death which means contacting her family members. Her dad did not even know she had returned to Dundee.
Some of the dialogue was a bit rubbish. At work someone asked Emma whether she will be homesick? I was born in Dundee is Emma's reply. The person who asked the question had interviewed Emma for the job. She obviously did not read Emma's resume.
Professor Sarah Gordon who is the head of the forensics department is readily concerned if Emma's mum's demise was indeed a real life case study for the course. However I understand that real life cases are a feature of many forensic courses.
Emma's mother was buried in Dundee Law, the highest point of Dundee and there is a country park on it.
The setting of Dundee makes a change from Glasgow or Edinburgh. However there was one thing that was strange. You would have a shot of a character in Dundee city centre. You can tell as there are statues of Dandy characters such as Desperate Dan. The next shot is the same character in Bolton town centre which is being passed off as Dundee. That is almost 300 miles away!