The Shipton Abbott police station in Beyond Paradise has faced the looming threat of closure due to a move toward a centralized hub, described by Kris Marshall (Humphrey Goodman) as an “existential threat.”
“Everything is on a one-way track to being homogenised and centralised, and so that obviously removes the soul of community policing, which is something that’s close to Humphrey’s heart,” he told.
“And because of that, the station house, their mini, quirky station house, is directly under threat from being assimilated into the hub.
“How that resolves itself, we’ll just have to find out, but it’s an ongoing thing.”
Beside the looming merger, uncertainty clouds the fate of the town’s police station employees. Will their positions remain secure?
“You honestly think they could get rid of one of us?” asked a concerned Kelby (Dylan Llewellyn) in the teaser for next week’s episode.
“The chief super said nothing is off the table,” responded Margo.
During an interview and other press before season 2 arrived, Felicity Montagu, who plays Margo, said that she doesn’t “think it would have occurred” to her character that she could be the first to go “if they moved.”
In Montagu’s words, she believes herself to be “the central engine of that station”.
But while acknowledging that Margo could be in for “a very big shock”, she is “very useful”.
“Even if you go to the headquarters, they’ve got to have someone to answer the phones,” said Montagu. “She thinks she’s needed, and I think she is.”
Zahra Ahmadi (DS Esther Williams) added:
“They wouldn’t survive without her.”
“No, they wouldn’t,” she agreed. “Not as it stands at the moment….”
But the actor did go on to say that she believes
“the station will probably stay as it is”.
There certainly wouldn’t be much of a show if they all upped and left.
