Editing Cracker (British TV series) (section)

==Influences==
''Cracker'' storylines often begin by showing the crime being committed, a format popularised by ''[[Columbo]]''.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://buffalonews.com/2006/10/26/cracker-comes-off-as-a-little-stale/|title='Cracker' comes off as a little stale|date=26 October 2006 |publisher=[[The Buffalo News]]|access-date=16 May 2020}}</ref> Both series feature a lead character who solves crimes while masking an intelligent, perceptive nature behind a slobbish exterior, a debt acknowledged by ''Cracker'' creator Jimmy McGovern;<ref>{{cite web|url=http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/2006/04/oh-im-just-another-cop-my-name-is.html|title=I'm Just Another Cop. My Name Is Columbo|last=Billingham|first=Mark|author-link=Mark Billingham|date=10 September 2007|website=The Rap Sheet|access-date=16 May 2020}}</ref> Fitz delivers his summing-up in "To Say I Love You" while doing a [[Peter Falk]] impression.<ref name=SayILove>{{cite web|url=https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cracker-Say-Love-You-DVD/dp/B00008WQ8Q/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=cracker+to+say+i+love+you&qid=1583114260&s=dvd&sr=1-5|title=Cracker: To Say I Love You [DVD] [1993]|publisher=Amazon.co.uk|access-date=2 March 2020}}</ref>

The series' conception was also partly a reaction against the [[police procedural]] approach of fellow Granada crime serial ''[[Prime Suspect]]'', placing more emphasis on emotional and psychological truth than on correct police procedure. In an interview with the ''[[NME]]'', McGovern dismissed ''Prime Suspect'', noting that "Good TV writing has narrative simplicity and emotional complexity," and characterising the series as "A narratively complex story going up its own arse."<ref>{{Cite journal|first=Steven|last=Wells|author-link=Steven Wells|date=28 October 1995|title=Ratings-guzzling uber-TV show Cracker is back to peel away the scabs of post Hillsborough Britain|journal=[[NME]]|publisher=[[IPC Media]]}}</ref> Gub Neal, who produced the first series of ''Cracker'', is quoted as saying, "That we had adopted the right approach was confirmed for me when Jacky Malton, the senior woman police officer who advised on ''Prime Suspect'', said that although the way things happened in ''Cracker'' was sometimes highly improbable, the relationships between the police were in many ways much more credible than they had been in ''Prime Suspect''."<ref>{{harvnb|Crace|1994|pp=22–24}}</ref>