By Henrietta Knight

It can be tricky knowing what to disclose in a review of a whodunit. Some viewers want to be told all the details, while others prefer to unravel the mysteries themselves. It is hard to know where to start with Paranoid because it has more twists and turns than Spaghetti Junction.

It opens with a shocking scene in a crowded playground when a hoodie stabs a young mother as she pushes her child on a swing.

Detectives set about solving this seemingly straightforward murder investigation only to discover it is full of conspiracies and cover ups. So far so par for the police drama course.

Sadly, this one is so littered with tired old clichés that it is really difficult to stick with the eight episodes on offer. For starters there’s the traditionally stupid top cop who gets everything wrong. Yawn. Naturally, there's a litany of unanswered questions: Did the prime suspect jump to his death? Or was he pushed? Did he really murder the mum, who turns out to be a doctor called Angela? Does anyone give a damn? I certainly don't. Then, of course, we find the stalker’s bunker covered in insane drawings. Plus, the hackneyed anonymous letters to the police. The groaning list of boring storylines are endless.

This series desperately tries to be different and hip, but there is absolutely nothing we haven’t seen before which is surprising since it's made by Red Productions, the team behind award winners Happy Valley and Last Tango In Halifax. Both of which were well-written, brilliantly acted and compelling.

Paranoid’s dud dialogue is heavy going. A foreign detective gushes: “The English countryside is like a fairytale.” Unlike the script, which is a clunking nightmare.

The story's ace detective Nina (Indira Varma) is supposed to be quirky and interesting. Sadly, she's neither. She exudes a kind of uselessness, is intensely annoying and is a bit of an office bully. Her feisty young sidekick Alec (Dino Fetscher) flirts with his boss, but their knockabout banter is just rude and unpleasant. According to his mad mother – a compulsive liar - smart Alec is supposed to have a first class honours degree. Yeah right, so many Plods are Oxbridge educated.

The show’s saving grace is its fine cast including Lesley Sharp who plays smiley but sinister Lucy, a Quaker determined to get her oats from Bobby (Robert Glenister), a troubled old school cop suffering debilitating panic attacks. In a bid to persuade him to stay the night, lusty Lucy makes Bobby an arresting offer of “brilliant fried eggs with halloumi” for breakfast. She's clearly been taken in by those weird “little twists” Sainsburys adverts.

Meanwhile, a fake detective is spooking everyone by interviewing all the witnesses in the park at the time of the murder. And someone keeps sending Bobby messages in boxes. The notes say things like “Look for her partner”, “Find out what you’re up against” and "What's on the other channel?" Okay, I made the last one up.

The entire disjointed production hangs together so poorly I couldn’t work out where it was going. I will end my review here, in case further observations sound like the ramblings of a crazed critic in the depths of paranoid schizophrenia.