ITV Buys ‘The Galway Bay Murders’ Thriller Starring Kate Mulgrew & Colm Meaney
Kate Mulgrew leaving Starfleet for the west of Ireland sounds like the start of a very good pub story. She's Nora Savage, an NYPD detective who crosses an ocean to escape a traumatic past, and Colm Meaney, who practically owns Irish small-town credibility on screen, is along for the ride. The casting alone sells me on this one.
What I'm curious about is the writer. Eithne Verling is new to TV, and there's a gamble in that, but sometimes a fresh voice is exactly what a well-worn genre needs. The big-city-cop-in-a-small-town shape is familiar, but the west of Ireland setting could give it texture if the landscape is treated as more than a postcard backdrop.
I'd want to know what's actually in Nora's past and how quickly the quiet life unravels. The premise promises the kind of slow-burn tension that works best when the personal and procedural threads knot together. If the show can make Galway feel like a character rather than a setting, this could be something to look forward to.