The fictional Scottish Institute of Forensic Science becomes both workplace and crime scene when lab technician Molly Windsor’s return to Dundee coincides with the reopening of her mother’s 2001 murder. Working alongside chemistry professor Laura Fraser and forensic anthropologist Jennifer Spence, she processes evidence that points toward people she sees every morning, including construction boss and new lover Martin Compston. The six-episode first series, broadcast on Alibi in December 2019, keeps its revelations local, the city’s granite buildings and docklands standing in for a place where everyone’s secrets overlap.
A second run arrived in February 2022, again six parts, again shot mainly in Bolton despite the Tayside setting. The same trio now juggle an explosion at a nightclub and the suspicious suicide of a key witness, while university politics and Police Scotland budget cuts keep threatening to shut the lab down. Michael Nardone’s quietly tenacious detective and John Gordon Sinclair’s compromised father figure return, but the focus stays on the women who read bones, fibres and phone data faster than most detectives read faces.
Co-creator Val McDermid’s idea of embedding forensic scientists inside an ongoing investigation gives the procedural its rhythm: every episode starts in the lab before moving to interview rooms, mortuary slabs and building-site exhumations. Amelia Bullmore’s scripts keep exposition brisk, trusting aerial shots of the Tay Rail Bridge and a down-tempo cover of Nina Simone’s “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” to supply the mood. Critics called it competent rather than startling; viewers who liked their murders served with Scottish accents and credible lab coats kept the ratings steady enough for BBC One to repeat both series in 2024.
Production Details
U&Alibi / 2 Seasons / 12 Episodes / 2019
Created by: Val McDermid, Amelia Bullmore
Writer(s): Val McDermid, Amelia Bullmore
Producer(s): Juliet Charlesworth
Main Cast
Molly Windsor as Emma
Laura Fraser as Prof. Sarah Gordon
Jennifer Spence as Prof. Kathy Torrance
Martin Compston as Daniel MacAfee
Michael Nardone as DCI Neil McKinven
Laurie Brett as Izzy Alessi
John Gordon Sinclair as Drew Cubbin
Vincent Regan as Phil MacAfee
Moyo Akandé as Trina
Andrea Hart as Janine Muir
Badria Timimi as Dean Jean Bruzzi
Morayo Akandé as DC Trina Adebayo
