Virtual Dreams

This was actually my very first thing that I saw John Simm in – at least consciously because somehow, regretfully, David Mars didn’t leave a lasting impression when I watched Collateral on Netflix a few years prior. Starting my self-appointed John Simm journey with the Brighton-based multipart crime series was kind of a no-brainer, because there were five series to catch up on, and I figured it would be hard for me not to like a feature-length British crime serial.

Starting out as a two-part series a good number of years ago—2021 to be exact—we meet Detective Superintendent Roy Grace at a low point in his career. Relegated to cold cases after struggling with the unsolved disappearance of his wife Sandy, Roy isn’t exactly finding joy in his work anymore. It doesn’t help that he goes off the rails a little bit by eliciting the help of a supernatural medium to solve one of his cases that lands him some pretty unsavoury press coverage. Once a well-respected, skilled and smart detective, he has now been stashed away in an out-of-the-way office where his colleagues have mostly forgotten that he even exists.

Everyone except his old friend and mentee Glenn Branson, it seems. Glenn takes pity and reaches out to drag Roy out of his office and elicit his help on an active case that could use the experience of a sharp eye and a keen mind like Roy’s. Roy is initially reluctant to accept what he knows is mostly charity, but he’s also itching to get back out there, so he’s added to the investigative team in a consultancy role with Branson at the helm.

Helping Glenn and the team to solve the case eventually puts Roy back on the map, and before he knows it, he has his old team back as lead detective among Brighton’s finest. Helping Roy solve many more cases are his core team consisting of his old friend and colleague DS Glenn Branson, DS Bella Moy, DS Norman Potting and DC Nick Nicholl, although later series have a bit of change in team composition and Branson and Nicholl eventually get promotions.

John Simm portrays main protagonist Roy Grace, the character the series is named after and who carries the whole thing. Certainly a meaty role, and crime drama wouldn’t be crime drama if we didn’t also have a bit of a romance story for him in the mix.

When we first meet Roy, he is still very much hung up on the unexplained disappearance of his wife Sandy, leaving him haunted by the eventuality that he hasn’t done enough to find her. Now, years later, Glenn urges Roy to get back in the dating game, but there’s always that nagging feeling that Sandy might still be alive. That slowly changes when Roy sets eyes on newly appointed forensic pathologist Cleo Morey, and the two of them start a bit of a slow-burn romance that has its own ups and downs along the way.

With plenty of crime going around the Brighton and Hove area, Roy and his team certainly have their work cut out for them, with Peter James providing plenty of source material. However, not all episodes are based on the books and some of the narrative and characterisation has strayed from the original.

So far, so good. The thing is, when I first watched Grace, I was really hoping that it would not disappoint, but admittedly I don’t like the series unequivocally. The cases are certainly interesting but after six series of it, I am starting to see the glaring shortcomings that make it increasingly frustrating to watch as a John Simm fan. Before I delve any further, let me preface this with saying this is just my opinion, and clearly many others may and will disagree. But this is where I’m coming from:

I think television is at its best when it has three-dimensional characters. What I love are characters who are conflicted, whom you don’t love right away or don’t love unconditionally, who are flawed and maybe even a little problematic. I love characters who are imperfect, who tend to unapologetically fuck up, who have a good redemption arc.

And Roy… Well, Roy doesn’t have any of that—if we disregard that he’s a little too married to his work. He’s just a good egg through and through, which makes him, well… pretty bland. That’s sad enough when you have to say it about the person who carries the series, but unfortunately it’s not just Roy. None of the main characters have any depth to speak of, and every series they seem to spend less and less time on actual character exploration.

Particularly when you know what John Simm is capable of as an actor and how good he is at conveying emotional complexity, it’s incredibly disappointing to see that he is never given the chance to deliver anything remotely poignant as Roy Grace. All we ever seem to see him do is standing by a whiteboard, doling out instructions, or giving witnesses solemn looks as he interviews them about something or other.

And, you know, it’s not that I don’t get what they’re trying to do. Grace is first and foremost about the criminal cases. It builds on the books and what the source material gives the writers. The cases are (mostly) written well and it’s entertaining enough to tag along for the ride of figuring out who the culprit is and how the team gets to the end result of solving the case. But personally, I wish there was more of an emotional tether through it all – not just for Roy but also the other characters. I want to know what drives and motivates them, what their flaws are, how they handle challenging or interesting situations in their private lives and how and where they fuck up.

With series 6 just having finished airing in mid-April, I was particularly frustrated with the many missed opportunities for character development that were blatantly ignored, such as exploring the integration of Bruno into Roy and Cleo’s lives or how the new development in the Sandy backstory would affect Roy, Cleo and Bruno on a more personal level. Yet, none of it was explored much beyond 60-second scenes that barely scraped at the surface of these issues, some of them executed so ungracefully that I rolled my eyes at how shoehorned the writing was.

And when I see this and know just how much John Simm excels at portraying character depth, conflict and emotional intensity, I want to bite my fist in eternal frustration. The scripts don’t give this cast of top-notch actors much to work with and I always feel that John’s acting talent and skill is heavily underused on the series.

To John’s credit, though, book author Peter James has said that when he writes Roy Grace novels now, he actually pictures John as the character. High praise from the creator himself. Another thing we keep hearing is that everyone who works on the series always talks about how much fun everyone is having on set, and that because the subject matter is pretty heavy, they make up for it by joking and laughing on set a lot.

That said, my complaints about Grace seem somewhat nonconformist since I don’t really see anyone else having similar thoughts when the series is being discussed online. People on social media seem to either be incredibly enthusiastic about the series, or they are more concerned with whether or not John Simm is well cast as Roy Grace, how the TV version doesn’t adequately reflect the books, that Norman Potting is sorely missed and should come back, that the characters are wearing sunglasses in outdoor scenes (shocking, seeing how it was filmed in the summer) or, well, John’s hair… (No, srsly.)

At the end of the day, Grace is still a very popular crime series and it wouldn’t be running for all these years if there wasn’t some sort of winning formula to it. It seems to have a loyal following, perhaps from a more casual audience that enjoys a good crime story on Sunday night. Enough of one that ITV has commissioned another series, which means we’ll see Roy Grace back on our screens some time in 2027. Filming for series 7 has reportedly started on April 27, 2026.

If you want to catch up with older episodes, you can do so via ITVX and STV Player in the UK and Britbox in the US. In other countries, the series is streaming on different platforms and networks. Previous series have also been released on DVD in the UK and Australia. Alongside John Simm are starring Richie Campbell, Zoë Tapper, Laura Elphinstone, Brad Morrison and Juliette Motamed.

If you’d like to dig deeper, here’s some additional behind-the-scenes and interview content:

Series 1 Behind the Scenes

Series 2 Filming Grace

John Simm and Zoe Tapper on 'This Morning' about Series 2

John Simm and Richie Campbell on 'The One Show' about Series 2

John Simm on 'This Morning' about Series 3

John Simm and Zoe Tapper on 'The One Show' about Series 3

John Simm on 'This Morning' about Series 4

John Simm and Richie Campbell on 'The One Show' about Series 5