Annika is a 2021 crime drama series set in Glasgow, Scotland. Based on the BBC 4 Radio drama Annika Stranded, it's directed by Philip John and Fiona Walton. It stars Nicola Walker, Jamie Sives, Katie Leung, Ukweli Roach, Kate Dickie, Silvie Furneaux and Paul McGann. Commissioned for the Alibi channel and later airing on BBC 1, the show has aired two seasons to date.
Detective Inspector Annika Strandhed (Walker) is from the Scotland Police, who gets transferred to the Greater Glasgow Area in order to lead its Marine Homicide Unit (MHU), where its officers investigate serious cases that involve bodies or serious criminal evidence being found near bodies of water. She immediately clashes with her Number Two, Detective Sergeant Michael McAndrews (Sives), her long-ago ex-boyfriend who was passed over for the position. Annika lives with Morgan (Furneaux), her only daughter whose father is not in the picture.
Annika works to solve the cases assigned to her team while trying to be there for Morgan as her work sometimes forces her to be absent from her life.
PBS began running the series on Masterpiece Mystery! in the United States on 16 October 2022.
This series provides examples of:
- Aside Comment: Annika does this when she explains the significance of an episode's theme or what just happened.
- Ask a Stupid Question...: In the last episode of the first season, Annika and Tyrone chase a suspect who works in an Indian cuisine restaurant. When the suspect runs, Annika snarks on why does the suspect always run.
- Asshole Victim: Ronnie Kidd, the victim in episode 1.2, was dating a 15-year-old girl who was one of his students at the high school.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: Morgan, who spends the first episode complaining about having to go around in a boat, complains about her mother's car, and complains about her new school and the drama club she got stuck in. In episode 1.2 she's found sneaking vodka into school in a water bottle.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Annika regularly addresses the camera directly, sharing her thoughts, talking about her life, and examining a different work of classic literature or mythology which she relates to the case each episode.
- Briefcase Full of Money: The murder victim in episode 2.2 was paroled from prison with £70 of pocket money. The cops track her to a swanky hotel where they find a satchel with £20,000 in it.
- British Brevity: Alibi ran the show for six episodes. A second series aired in August 2023.
- The Bus Came Back: Jake, Morgan's therapist and Anika's boyfriend in Season 1, pops back up in episode 2.4 when Annika runs into him at a conference. They start things back up again.
- Cliffhanger: The second season ends with Annika listening to a recording of a phone call between murder victim Jackie and another man, right before Jackie was killed. Jackie addresses the caller as "Magnus" and Annika realizes the man on the line is her own father. She looks at the camera and says "Help me." Roll credits.
- Construction Vehicle Rampage: In episode #2.3, workers at a recycling plant, angry at suddenly discoering they are unemployed, attack their boss's SUV with a front end loader. McAndrews and Clarke manage to pull him out just before the roof is crushed.
- Curse Cut Short: In episode 2.3, as Annika is wallowing in guilt about not telling the truth about Morgan, she says she's been "acting like a c—well, like a cow."
- Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Morgan doesn't know who her father is, though Annika does and has a standing offer to tell her if she asks. It's Michael, who got Annika pregnant when they were at Police College together. Annika didn't think he was prepared to be a father and didn't want to put Morgan through a repeat of her own parents' stormy relationship.
- Deadpan Snarker: Annika is a champion snarker. When she's told that someone from Morgan's school called, she says "Excellent. I imagine she's won a prize of some sort." (She's been caught drinking at school.)
- Death Flight: In episode 2x5, the Victim Ofthe Week ismurdered by being pushed out of a seaplane in flight over a loch.
- Dies Wide Open: The victim in episode 1.2 is shown staring up sightlessly from the floor of his boat.
- Dramatic Irony: In the series 2 finale, Morgan is shown instructing a younger girl to prepare a Trust Password for her parents to give to someone they send to pick her up from school, only to then get kidnapped herself by a suspected Cop Killer that Annika interrogated earlier, who stole an instruction car from Morgan's driving school.
- Dramatic Sit-Down: Michael's wife Astrid does this in episode 2.5 when Michael drops the bomb about being Morgan's father.
- Dumped via Text Message: Erin dumps Morgan by text in 2.3 rather than come to a friend's birthday party with her. This leads to Morgan taking Annika's police boat on a joyride to distract herself, which gets her grounded after she forgets to anchor it after bringing it back and it drifts across the bay.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: The first season ends with everyone in the MHU taking time off to celebrate with Morgan on her birthday after Annika survives being killed in a grenade blast.
- Embarrassing Slide: In episode 2x5, Annika goes to share a crime scene photo from her phone with her team, but in the process shows them several selfies of herself and Jake—including one of them doing duck face—and a photo of her boat and an octopus before finding the one she is after.
- "Eureka!" Moment: In the second-season finale, Morgan is stressing about her driving test. Michael helps her with a couple of quiz questions and then says "You'll be fine." Just as Morgan is arriving at the driving test, a dad drops off his daughter and says "You'll be fine." Morgan figures out that Michael is her dad.
- Exact Words: The MHU is tasked with solving murders that take place in or by water. In Season 2 this extends to a wealthy man found dead in the shark tank in his mansion.
- Foreshadowing: The second-season finale has Magnus, who is there for a visit, asking Annika questions about her murder case, and even asking if there were any witnesses. The Cliffhanger finale implies that Magnus is the killer.
- The Food Poisoning Incident: In episode 2x5, Michael attempts to keep investigating the Body of the Week despite suffering food poisoning brought one by eating his eldest daughter's home economics project.
- Frying Pan of Doom: In episode 2.1, DS Tyrone Clarke chases a suspect into a hotel kitchen. While the two of them are wrestling on the kitchen floor, the hotel chef clouts the suspect over the back of the head with a frying pan, knocking him out.
- Gender-Blender Name: A plot point in episode 2.4. Annika and the MHU are looking for a woman named Tina, sister of the murder victim. It's not until Chris, the woman who works for the hotel, gets a phone call that they realize that "Chris" is actually Christina, the dead man's sister.
- Golf Clubbing: In episode 2x5, Harper is on the phone to Annika when she sees the Victim of the Week's business partner drive up and start smashing the windows of the victim's husband's car with a golf club.
- Government Agency of Fiction: Scotland Police doesn't exist. It's merely a counterpart of Police Scotland. Meanwhile, the MHU is supposedly based on the actual Major Investigation Team.
- Gun Struggle: In episode 1.1 Danny says this is how the first murder went down; he was struggling with the drowned girl's angry father over a harpoon gun, and it went off.
- Hero's Classic Car: A 1993 Saab for Annika. Becomes Watch the Paint Job in episode 6 when a murderer blows himself up after having earlier kidnapped Annika and held her captive in the trunk.
- Hooks and Crooks: In episode 2x3, Michael confronts the killer on board a boat and the killer attacks him with a gaff hook.
- Immediate Sequel: Season 2 starts up within hours of Season 1, with the cops off on another murder case. Everyone is worried about Annika, who is still working right after she was held captive in the trunk of her car—though Annika is fine about that: what looks like PTSD to people who aren't privy to Annika's Internal Monologue is actually Annika angsting about whether she should tell Michael he's Morgan's father.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: In episode 1.2 Annika narrowly escapes being killed when the boat on which they found a body explodes. Then she has to pick up her daughter, who's being sent home from school after she's been caught with vodka in a water bottle. Back home, a still-jittery Annika drinks Morgan's vodka.Annika: If anyone's bloody drinking it's me. [takes a swig] Oh Christ, she could have put a mixer in it.
- Low Clearance: Episode 2.1 involves a banker engaging the services of a hit man. After the sting that ends the episode, the banker goes running off, with the money for the payoff still in his hands—and crashes right into a beam over a doorway, knocking himself out. When Michael walks over to the unconscious banker he says "It wasn't even real money."
- Mystery of the Week: Each episode has Annika solving a different case.
- Mythology Gag:
- Annika is the child of Norwegian parents; she's seen speaking to her father on the phone in fluent Norwegian. Later on, she sings in Norwegian when she greets Morgan happy birthday in another episode. The original radio drama was set in Oslo, Norway.
- The first episode starts with Annika addressing the camera in an Aside Comment and saying "Call me Annika." Throughout the show she's making Aside Comments continually, that being one of the hooks of the series. In episode 2.1 she gets a loaner car, hers having been exploded at the end of the first season. It's a voice-activated car, so she takes the keys and says, to the car, "Hello, I'm Annika."
- Never One Murder: In the first episode Finlay Morris is the prime suspect right up until the time he's killed in a hit-and-run. Annika and the other cops quickly realized that he must have seen the murder happen rather than do it himself.
- Not My Driver: In episode 2.6, Morgan takes her driving test. The instructor in the driving test is actually Gary Nair, ex-con and a prime suspect in that episode's murder.
- One-Word Title: Annika
- Passed-Over Promotion: Michael wanted the MHU team leader job but was passed over in favor of Annika.
- Pipe Pain: In episode 2x6, a homeless man—who has been told Michael is a trafficker—clobbers Michael with a length of pipe. He gets in a few good blows before Michael manages to turn the tables and get the pipe away from him.
- Poorly Timed Confession: At the end of episode 2.2, Annika tells Michael that he's Morgan's father during a surprise open mic session. In fairness, it was partly Michael's own fault for signing her up without her knowledge as a prank.
- Protagonist Title: Annika
- Put on a Bus: DS Tyrone Clarke gets a promotion to detective inspector in 2x3 and leaves the series to head up another MHU unit. He's replaced by DS Harper Weston, who was introduced a couple episodes ago.
- Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: In 2x4, a body is found frozen in a block of ice at the bottom of the Sound of Islay, and a woman believes it's her domestic partner who absconded with half her money to return to his toxic ex, who runs an ice factory. That turns out to be a Red Herring when Harper mentions the partner's name to the employee leading her around the factory, and he identifies himself as the man they thought was in the ice block.
- The Reveal: The last line of dialogue in the last episode of the first season has Annika telling the audience that Michael, her coworker and old boyfriend, is Morgan's father.
- Rooftop Confrontation: A low-key one in episode 2.3, when Annika is trying to rig up a lawn chair on the roof to get some sun. Michael comes up to the roof to confront her, in the first episode after Annika has revealed the truth about Morgan.
- School Play: In the first episode Morgan, who is playing in The Tempest, delivers a Screw This, I'm Outta Here to the audience and stalks off. Annika then hits a fire alarm so students will have something else to talk about.
- Shout-Out:
- The first episode opens with Annika looking straight at the camera and saying "Call me Annika." She spends much of the rest of the episode talking about Herman Melville and Moby-Dick, what with her murder victim having been harpooned.
- This is a hook for every single episode afterwards, with Annika always relating the events of the episode to some old work of literature.
- Surprise Pregnancy:
- Annika herself was the result of one, and as a consequence felt unwanted throughout her childhood because her father was terrible at showing affection to her. After Annika had a surprise of her own, this motivated her decision to not tell Morgan who her father was, or him about her.
- Enforced with Blair, with discovers during series 2 that she's unexpectedly become pregnant from an offscreen liaison. This was a way of working Katie Leung's real-life pregnancy into the series.
- Teacher/Parent Romance: A close variant: Annika becomes attracted to Morgan's therapist Jake Strathearn. Once this comes out, Morgan understandably stops seeing him as a patient, and he and Annika take a pause to put space between them and the doctor/patient relationship, before resuming the relationship after they run into each other at a conference in series 2.
- Teacher/Student Romance: In the backstory. Ronnie Kidd, the victim in episode 1.2, is a teacher who was dating a 15-year-old student.
- Vacation Episode: Episode 2.5 has Annika going for a weekend at a seaside resort where Morgan is getting work experience. Naturally, there's a murder.
- Wacky Cravings: A Season 2 plotline involves Blair getting pregnant. In episode 2.3, she's drinking pickle juice.
- Watch the Paint Job:
- Annika's Saab. She gets carjacked by the suspect in 1.6, who blows himself up with a grenade while still inside.
- DCI Oban loans her VW Touareg to Annika while she looks for another car. It promptly gets its taillight knocked out while parked when a suspect fleeing Annika and Michael backs a delivery van into it.
- Wham Line: In episode 1.6, Michael asks Annika if Morgan ever talks to her dad. Annika says no, but when he goes to join the rest of the team and sing Morgan happy birthday, she turns to the camera and says, "But she is talking to him right now."
- Working with the Ex: Michael is Annika's ex-boyfriend from when they were police cadets. He's now Happily Married and their past relationship doesn't pose a huge issue, until Annika reveals in the series 1 finale that he's Morgan's biological father.
- Your Son All Along: Annika reveals in the Season 1 finale that Morgan was fathered by her current Number Two Michael when they were dating at Police College. At the time she believed he wasn't mature enough to be a father, and didn't want the terrible relationship she has with her own father for Morgan. She spends the first two episodes of Season 2 trying to tell Michael about it and getting repeatedly interrupted before she manages to spit it out at an open-mic night he tricked her into.
