Even on a ventilator Jamie Dornan exuded brooding menace while Gillian Anderson was as elegant and enigmatic as ever in the terrifying return of The Fall, by Jim Shelley 

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The Fall was back for another bout of sadistic psychological chess played out between Jamie Dornan and Gillian Anderson, subjecting viewers to its usual unbearable tension but in the opposite way we expected.

There were no exchanges between ‘Belfast Strangler’ Paul Spector and DS Stella Gibson. In fact, it was a tribute to the brooding menace Dornan exuded that Spector was virtually silent throughout.

The start of series three jettisoned its trademark, sparing the audience the traditional horror of having to endure the sight and the sensation of Spector creeping around the house of his victims, dressing them up as his first love, and murdering them.

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High drama: The Fall was back for another bout of sadistic psychological chess played out between Jamie Dornan and Gillian Anderson

Instead it was mostly set in Belfast General Hospital and more like the most sinister episode of Casualty than a crime drama.

This was The Fall taking its time, like a stalker. Like the control freak-turned-serial killer it centred on.

It picked up where it left off after Spector had been shot by aggrieved husband James Tyler just as Gibson had finally found Rose Stagg, the missing radiologist Spector had abducted and left for four days in the boot of his car.

Brooding menace: The episode was mostly set in Belfast General Hospital and more like the most sinister episode of Casualty than a crime drama

This time it was about Spector’s survival not his victims’ with DS Gibson in the strange position of having to protect him having spent the previous two series hunting him, trying to bring him down. So episode one was not about Spector killing but about him living - or dying.

Given that Dornan was the star of the show, frankly the latter always seemed unlikely, even if the doctors did stress that he had suffered ‘massive internal bleeding’, ‘lost half his blood volume’ and needed ‘a new spleen.’

‘We’re losing him!’ a medic inevitably shouted during surgery, failing to add the Holby City mantra of ‘he’s crashing.’

It was at this point Dornan had his only word of dialogue: ‘mother.’

A welcome return: The episode picked up where it left off after Spector had been shot by aggrieved husband James Tyler just as Gibson had finally found Rose Stagg

Spector had lost consciousness and we saw him in his mind - in a tunnel walking towards the light before hesitating, torn between joining his dead mother and his daughter calling ‘daddy look what I found.’

When the surgeon announced he was stable again it was as if Spector had made it happen by force of will.

It may not have had any of The Fall’s usual twisted attacks and calculated threat but the longer the hospital drama continued the worse the tension was. We knew something bad was coming.

Admittedly Spector didn’t seem in any condition to escape.

‘He’s been given muscle relaxant and is on a ventilator,’ his doctor said. ‘He’s going nowhere.’

Hard to read: As usual Gillian Anderson played DS Gibson as a glacial enigma

Talk about tempting fate. Hadn’t he seen the previous two series?!

DS Stella Gibson hadn’t learnt her lesson either, telling Rose’s catatonic figure: ‘you’re safe now. Everything’s going to be OK.’ #WordsNotToSayInTheFall

Sure enough, even though Gibson had specified that Rose Stagg and Spector her attacker be kept apart, after he survived his surgery they ended up just yards apart, down in ICU, with alarmingly few police to guard them.

It was only in the final minutes that writer Alan Cubitt cranked up The Fall’s familiar sense of terror and even then it was through the most minimal, almost subliminal, sinister details that we could tell were significant but didn’t yet know how.

Was it our imagination and anxiety for example, or did the nurse looking after Spector exactly fit his ‘type’ – the profile of the women he had murdered?

Strange turn of events: This time it was about Spector’s survival not his victims’ with DS Gibson in the strange position of having to protect him having spent the previous two series hunting him, trying to bring him down

Was she aware that Spector had – chillingly – opened his eyes?

Spector’s young daughter discovered from his wife’s laptop why he’d been arrested when she saw the headline ‘The Face Of A Killer’ above her father’s picture. (She took the news alarmingly calmly.)

Then there was the way the camera dwelt on the nurse pinning the ‘get well soon mummy’ drawing by Rose’s bed - more ominous than reassuring, like a beacon announcing who she was.

Equally the most shocking scene of the night should have been the most gentle.

When Spector’s nurse told Stella Gibson sternly ‘you shouldn’t be in here. Please leave!’ surprisingly the Detective Superintendent simply did, crossing the ward to another patient.

‘Is that you?’ the old lady muttered struggling to look at Stella. ‘I’ve been so worried. Thank God you’re safe sweetheart. I’m glad you’ve come.’

Whether it was Stella’s mother or a stranger who reminded her or that Stella was using as a substitute for comfort remained a mystery.

Man of few words: It was a tribute to the brooding menace Dornan exuded that Spector was virtually silent throughout

As usual Gillian Anderson played DS Gibson as a glacial enigma.

When she went to check on the officer who had been shot in the attack on Spector, the only expression of affection she allowed herself was one simple touch of his cheek.

‘There may be some nerve damage,’ DS Anderson revealed. ‘It could be the end of my career.’

‘Really?’ Gibson sighed elegantly, before managing merely to console him ‘I’m sure it’s not.’

When Rose Stagg’s husband started to crack under the guilt over her abduction and crying why she had seemingly left the house willingly with Spector, Stella kept her emotions equally intact.

‘Tom, I need you to listen to me right now,’ she said, almost whispering. ‘The most common instinct in the face of this kind of threat is to freeze. If she didn’t fight, if she didn’t scream, if she was silent and numb, it’s because she was petrified.’

Changing it up: The start of series three jettisoned its trademark, sparing the audience the traditional horror of having to endure the sight and the sensation of Spector creeping around the house of his victims

Whether that was also why Gibson herself obeyed the nurse’s instruction to leave or explained the expression of cold neutrality on her face as she saw Spector was alive and his proximity to Rose wasn’t clear.

‘What she needs to know is that she’s safe,’ Stella had told Tom Stagg earlier. ‘Be patient. Be tender. Tomorrow’s another day.’

Yes, you thought, it is - unfortunately.

Spector hadn’t moved or spoken once yet but even the way he lay there breathing on the ventilator was terrifying.

DS Gibson surely sensed it like the rest of us.

From here on in, everything in The Fall was only going to get worse. 

Climax: It was only in the final minutes that writer Alan Cubitt cranked up The Fall’s familiar sense of terror