The team consists of the leader, sharp and elusive Jack Quinn (Warren Brown), straight-talking Jessica Jones (Shelley Conn), digital whizz-kid Thomas "TomTom" Tomkins (Andrew-Lee Potts) and Charlie O'Brien (Elliot Knight).

Belinda Campbell, the executive producer for Red Planet Pictures, said: "By Any Means is a gripping and edgy drama, wonderfully crafted by our talented writing team.

With the action taking place on the cusp of the law, it provides the perfect premise for dramatic scenes, surprise twists and turns in the plot, as well as brilliantly complex and rich characters.

Tim Key, producer of the series for Red Planet Pictures, said, "Spring Grove House is a fantastic location for filming and we’re delighted to have been given permission to shoot there.

[12] A young girl, Kimberley Brooks (Sacha Parkinson), is found dead in the boot of a car belonging to a well-respected judge, Peter Hopkins, in what seems like an open-and-shut case.

Suspicion falls on ruthless property developer Phillip Granger (Christopher Villiers) but the police cannot get to him because he is holed up in the Colombian Embassy, where the ambassador is an old school friend.

Determined to put him behind bars, Jack and his team set up a surveillance operation at the nearby home of a doddery old lady, Celia Butler (Honor Blackman), while Charlie infiltrates the embassy to woo the ambassador's daughter that as it progresses threatens to cloud his judgement.

Former bank finance director Sally Walker (Harriet Walter) and her retired MP husband Laurence (Michael Maloney) have been cleared of stealing £3 million from their children's charity fund and two investigating police officers lost their jobs.

A persistent journalist's, Holly Goodridge (Amy Nuttall), own investigation inadvertently puts their back up plan of surveillance at risk forcing them to kidnap Laurence Walker.

A vicious drug dealer, Jamie Caine (Nick Moran), kills a young boy and walks free when a witness under threat retracts his statement.

"[23][24] Matt Baylis of the Daily Express said: "If you wanted to feel really angry at how the BBC spends our money, you could have watched By Any Means, a revoltingly poor action drama about a covert police unit that operates beyond the law.

"[24] The Independent's Alice Jones said "It looked promising, if derivative, enough – some Mad Men-style silhouetted credits, lots of Guy Ritchie zooming and jump-cuts, a classy cast – but it added up to lowest common denominator drama.

But it fits the pattern of everything from The A-Team to Charlie's Angels (it even has a shadowy, though female, figure issuing the orders from afar), a thick-eared adventure yarn that exists purely to entertain.