Through the muted tones and under a commanding, guttural warble emerges Dope Girls, a new BBC crime drama that is utterly deserving of your time.
The throaty, guttural sound was no joke by the way – that's simply how Dope Girls introduces itself.
Its opening scene serves as a metaphor for a painful rebirth, and in the centre of it all is Julianne Nicholson's Kate Galloway, who you may remember from the trailer. She was the one declaring a change within herself post-war, and it's fair to say she's definitely going through a metamorphosis.
Set in the aftermath of World War I, Dope Girls' synopsis talks of Armistice celebrations on the streets of London and war-hero men keen to be dropped back into the same society they left behind four years ago, but who instead find "a newly empowered generation of women [who] are loath to simply return to the kitchen".
The Peaky Blinders comparisons write themselves.
Kate is one such woman, forced onto a new path by circumstances out of her control, but she's not the only one.
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Dope Girls quickly introduces viewers to a whole host of interesting characters like they're a deck of trading cards, listing various things about them on screen – from their current predicament in life to number of murders, vulnerabilities and so on.
The closer you get to these women beyond their score sheet, the sooner you get a strong sense of them as fully fleshed-out people, especially in the flawed way they show up. Shrewd, resilient and gritty, Kate leads the charge as an opportunist desperately scrambling to turn a snowballing set of hardships into solid foundations.
Umi Myers' Billie is equally compelling. She's beguiling and has a lofty, flighty air about her, giving the impression of someone whose cares don't stick for too long. But Myers injects a heaviness into Billie's expressive eyes that speaks of pain – and if you double-take, you'll catch the sadness in her smile.
The dynamic between Kate and Billie is most intriguing, as are the questions that surround that relationship. The answers don't come easily but as the picture slowly sharpens in focus, it feels like a storyline that's earned.
Eliza Scanlen is also enthrallingly intense as Violet Davies, sharing some of the same opportunistic qualities as Kate but in a more cutthroat way. If her cards were played any closer to her chest, they'd be embedded in her skin. It makes for a mysterious character who's someone to keep an eye on.
Speaking of characters that you don't want to drop the ball on, Isabelle Salucci (Geraldine James) is deliciously chilling as the matriarch of the criminal Salucci family.
However, while this is a very female-driven story, the men are more than just background characters furnishing a scene.
Heartstopper's Sebastian Croft is appropriately pompous, entitled and grating as Silvio Salucci and while he doesn't get a lot of screen time, he manages to make an impact. The whole Salucci family is as unnerving as their intense family dynamic and as such, they all command your attention.
Power can be wielded in many ways – as the Saluccis will teach you – ranging from petulant or quietly forceful to creepily cool and calculated. Danger also takes on many forms, and there's nothing more dangerous than rash decisions made out of fear and desperation.
The tension in Dope Girls is stretched to capacity by the ignorant choices of characters that create precariously high-stakes situations.
Away from the action, the set and the costumes create a world that feels incredibly well lived in. The small and cramped space the characters inhabit, paired with low lighting, adds to the intensity.
However, if we really boil things down to what's most intriguing about this story, we must circle back to the women and the relationships they have with themselves – who they think they are versus who they find themselves becoming in this new world, and how that change marks them all differently.
Through the violent, bloody, sometimes stomach-churning, turn of events, they are all reborn in different ways.
Review based on episodes 1-3
Dope Girls will debut on Saturday, February 22 at 9.15pm on BBC One with all episodes available to stream from 6am on BBC iPlayer.
TV writer, Digital Spy Janet completed her Masters degree in Magazine Journalism in 2013 and has continued to grow professionally within the industry ever since. For six years she honed her analytical reviewing skills at the Good Housekeeping institute eventually becoming Acting Head of Food testing. She also freelanced in the field of film and TV journalism from 2013-2020, when she interviewed A-List stars such as Samuel L Jackson, Colin Firth and Scarlett Johansson. In 2021 she joined Digital Spy as TV writer where she gets to delve into more of what she loves, watching copious amounts of telly all in the name of work. Since taking on the role she has conducted red carpet interviews with the cast of Bridgerton, covered the BAFTAs and been interviewed by BBC Radio and London Live. In her spare time she also moonlights as a published author, the book Gothic Angel.
