Prime Suspect is a highly-acclaimed Granada Television police procedural television drama series of the decades of the 1990s and 2000s, which has been followed up by several sequels. The screenplays of the first three mini-series were written by Lynda La Plante.

Helen Mirren plays Jane Tennison, a hard-bitten female detective (DCI)—and starting in the third mini-series, Detective Superintendent—in a male-dominated profession in this crime series. The character was said to be based on Alison Halford , who acted as an advisor to the authors.

The programme set a trend for many new programmes with women in leading roles. One example is M.I.T. , a spin off from The Bill on ITV.

Prime Suspect's format amounts to a series of mini-series: each case runs for several nights of two hours. In the 1990s, five such mini-series each completed a case. Prime Suspect 6 broadcasts began in the United States on April 18, 2004, and Mirren has said she expects to make the seventh her last.

Filmography

• Prime Suspect (1991)
• Prime Suspect 2 (1992)
  • 4 1-hour episodes
• Prime Suspect 3 (1993) [1]
• Prime Suspect 4 (1995)
  • The Lost Child
  • Inner Circles
  • Scent of Darkness
• Prime Suspect 5: Errors of Judgment (1996) [2]
• Prime Suspect 6: The Last Witness (2004) [3]
  • 2 2-hour episodes