Waking the Dead

Waking the Dead: Series 5, Episodes 5 and 6: Subterraneans

Written by Ed Whitmore; Directed by Michael Offer

"We've all had days like that, haven't we? You make one small mistake, and because of that you make a bigger one. You leave your wallet by the bed. Then you go up to get it. You trip over the rug, you break your leg. Next thing you know, you're in hospital with a fatal infection. Just because you forgot your wallet." - Dr. Nick Henderson

After a slightly rocky start, Series 5 finally hits its stride with a solid if not entirely remarkable case which doesn't have to worry about introducing any new characters or airing the dirty laundry of those that are already established. The story here is that of Michael Sharman (Alexis Conran), a millionaire businessman who simply vanished a year ago. By chance, his body is found locked in the cellar of an old munitions factory, the evidence suggesting that he had been kept alive by his captor for several months, despite no ransom having ever been demanded. A chain of events leads the team to Sharman's former neighbour, Nick Henderson (Toby Stephens), a celebrated scientist leading a bizarre double life.

Fairly early on in the game, it becomes abundantly clear that Henderson is as guilty as they come, partly because of the evidence against him and partly because we, the audience, are granted intimate access to his daily activities, which include lying to his wife (Nicola Stephenson) about both his whereabouts and his employment status, holing up in a small shed on an allotment overlooking the site of Sharman's imprisonment, desperately dashing around searching for an alibi for the day of Sharman's disappearance, and, when the net closes in, going on the run with his wife after hoodwinking her with a sob story about him having discovered an outbreak of SARS in the UK which the government and the police are conspiring to hush up by doing him in. It all borders on farcical, and, particularly in the second part, the increasing absurdity of Henderson's claims does detract somewhat from what should have been a tense situation (there is a continual undercurrent which suggests that he may end up doing to his wife what he did to Sharman and at least one other victim), but it's all quite entertaining, and given that it's sandwiched between two considerably darker episodes, it makes for a welcome change of pace. Not that that flashbacks to Sharman slowly rotting away and going mad in his prison aren't brutal, however. In fact, the sheer banality of Henderson's reason for killing him makes the deeply calculated nature of his incarceration all the more shocking.

Ultimately, Subterraneans isn't a hugely noteworthy or memorable episode, but it works, and the slightly different nature of the case's progression (i.e. knowing the identity of the villain from a fairly early stage) succeeds in shaking up the formula a little.

Holby connections: Michael Offer has directed several episodes of Holby City over the years, while Kelly Harrison (Tina) played ambulance technician Nikki Marshall in Casualty between Series 16 and 18. Finally, Nicola Stephenson (Julia Henderson) played nurse Julie Fitzjohn in Holby City for its first three series.

Waking the Dead: Series 5, Episodes 3 and 4: Black Run

Written by Raymond Khoury; Directed by Ben Bolt

Back when Waking the Dead's fifth series was first beginning to air, in September 2005, Sue Johnston gave an interview with the Radio Times in which she said that the nice thing about the new series was that it focused exclusively on the characters of Boyd, Grace and Spence. At the time, I thought this was a rather unkind dig at her other co-stars, but, in retrospect, I see what she was getting at: while three of the two-parters in Series 5 are what I would term conventional Waking the Dead cases, with the team solving them in their capacity as detached (personally if not emotionally) professionals, each of the other three focuses on a past case of one of the three remaining members of the original team. Black Run is Boyd's turn to have his dirty laundry aired, and oddly enough it turns to be the weakest of the three.

The story: former police officer Eddy Vine (David Hayman), rotting in prison with terminal cancer, convicted of murdering his partner, Tom Palliser. Pending an appeal for his early release on grounds of ill health, Vine summons Boyd, the man who succeeded in securing his conviction a decade ago, to offer him forgiveness. Vine's manner, however, is enough to plant a shred of doubt in Boyd's mind, leading to him unofficially launching a re-examination of the evidence and witness testimony. Gradually, the rest of the team begin to suspect that Boyd may have coached some of the witnesses, causing them to question just for whom Boyd has re-opened the case. The worst is yet to come, however, when Boyd is suspended after putting a biker in a coma after seemingly being drunk at the wheel while in the company of Palliser's widow, Sheryl (Diane Parish)...

Actually, this is a rather interesting episode for one very specific reason: the part of Eddie Vine is played by David Hayman, best known as DCSI Mike Walker in rival series Trial & Retribution. Seeing him going head to head with Trevor Eve is like some sort of weird crossing over of two different worlds - think The Flintstones Meet the Jetsons, only less crappy. Their scenes together don't really have the sort of intensity I was expecting, in part because Hayman is putting on a less than convincing Cockney accent, with his regular Glasgow dialect occasionally slipping through the net, but it's also because there's something rather contrived about it all. The basic idea is that Boyd is set up for a massive fall by the vindictive Vine, with him pulling the strings from inside prison. Simply put, there aren't enough scenes between the two characters, and the identities of the individuals that he manages to manipulate into screwing Boyd over are a little on the far-fetched side. Trevor Eve certainly acquits himself with applomb, as always, but, because the show's producers would never allow him to commit a cock-up on as grand a scale as the one he is accused of here, the outcome is never in any doubt: Vine must be guilty, and Boyd must have been justified in coaching his witnesses to ensure that he went down. Vine is ultimately revealed to be a deeply unpleasant individual, corrupt to the core, but the programme ultimately ends up sending out the rather less than savoury message that it's okay for the police to bend the rules to ensure a conviction provided they're convinced their suspect is guilty. It's actually not entirely surprising that the script comes from Raymond Khoury, best known for his affiliation with Spooks, a programme which frequently revels in glorifying this "bending of the rules" by authorities who seem to be allowed to operate above the law. The series of events in which Boyd becomes embroiled also greatly demeans the character, turning into a screaming, slavering idiot who by rights should have had his status permanently revoked. This is arguably the character at his absolute worst, and comparing this episode with something from, say, Series 1, provides a clear indicator as to just how much he has (d)evolved since the show's beginning.

The other point of interest is that this storyline introduces Mel's permanent replacement, Stella Goodman (Félicité Du Jeu). Unfortunately, I've never been able to warm to this character, primarily because she seems so contrived. Without giving too much away, she is brought into Series 5 to serve a very specific purpose, but once that purpose has been served, the writers of Series 6 and beyond allow her to remain, but end up taking significant liberties with her characterisation once her original raison d'être is gone. Du Jeu tries hard, but she's always in the shadow of the rest of the cast, who are more experienced and have the benefit of better-developed characters. Stella's input in this episode is fairly minimal, so she is less irritating here than she would later become, but she still makes me wish they had just kept Georgia Mackenzie on instead.

Waking the Dead: Series 5, Episodes 1 and 2: Towers of Silence

Written by Joe Cozens; Directed by Philippa Langdale

One of the nicest things about any show with a small, established cast is the depth of characterisation that it affords. Waking the Dead, as I've said before, has never really been about the personal lives of its regulars, but, by spending so long with each of them, you really get a sense of what makes them tick and develop a close attachment to them. The downside, naturally, is that, when one of these characters leaves, the show's entire world is turned upside down. At the end of its fourth series, Waking the Dead lost not one but two of its five regulars, all of whom had been there since the pilot episode. The result is that, like it or not, the show can never be the same again.

In actual fact, Mel and Frankie weren't the only ones to leave. The other departure, behind the camera rather than in front of it, was that of executive producer Alexei de Keyser, who died of a heart attack mere days before the broadcast of Series 4's final episode. He was a producer on Casualty during its 13th series, and was promoted to series producer (in charge of the overall flow of the storylines and characters) for Series 14. When Barbara Machin left to do Waking the Dead, she took de Keyser with her, and I suspect that he, more than perhaps anyone else, was instrumental in establishing and maintaining the show's tone. On the upside, producer Richard Burrell opted to stick around for a third (and final) year, and, although the rest of the writing staff was new, Ed Whitmore remained in place as head writer, again for one more series.

Of the two new characters brought in to replace those that left at the end of the previous series, only one is introduced in this episode. Unfortunately, brilliant name aside, Dr. Felix Gibson (Esther Hall) has "placeholder" written all over her. Although a valiant effort is made to establish her as having her own personality in this episode, throughout the rest of the series she gives the impression of speaking lines that were intended for her predecessor, Frankie Wharton. I'm not sure precisely when it was realised that Holly Aird definitely wouldn't be coming back, but Felix's characterisation leads me to believe that at least some of the scripts were written for Frankie and then hastily retooled for Felix. At least in this first episode, the writer differentiates her from Frankie, primarily by playing up to Boyd's distinct discomfort around her, unnerved by her demand that he roll up his sleeves and help out in the lab (in contrast to Frankie's "one woman army" ethic) and attempting to compensate for her rather cold personality by making incessant small talk. (In later episodes, Felix would drop the "cold fish" persona completely and become much more talkative, not to mention discover the same sense of black humour that made Frankie such an enduring character.) I never liked Felix quite as much as Frankie, but she definitely grew on me, partly thanks to Esther Hall, whom I've always liked as an actress (even in those cloying BT commercials that she is probably best known for, in which she plays Kris Marshall's wife), and I was ultimately very disappointed that she only lasted for a single series, and was replaced by the interminably dull Eve Lockhart (Tara Fitzgerald), whom I'll discuss further when I get on to Series 6.

One final note on the casting before I get on to the episode itself: filling in for Mel for this two-parter only is DS Andrea "Andy" Stephenson (Georgia Mackenzie - no relation to me, I hasten to add), which I always found rather curious. Why go to the bother of introducing a new character and integrating her with the team, only to replace her with something completely different for the next case? I suspect that, ultimately, it had a lot to do with a desire on the part of the writers' to bring in someone with a strong resemblance to Mel, in order to accentuate Boyd's angst, but at the same time not wanting to simply replace Mel with Mel 2.0, so only keeping her around 'til she'd served her purpose. It's a shame, because, from what little we saw of her, I liked Andy a lot more than Mel's permanent replacement, whom I'll discuss in my review of the next episode.

Anyway, finally getting on to the episode's plot, the case the team are investigating this time round involves the discovery of a mummified body aboard a decommissioned cargo plane bound for an "aeroplane graveyard" in Arizona. Found sans hands, the body bears striking similarities to that of Nadir Mehta (Neran Persaud), an airport bag handler found by Andy at the top of a water tower in Kent six years ago when she was a PC. His brother, Sarosh (Emil Marwa), is currently in prison for his murder, but, suspecting that Sarosh is in fact taking the blame for someone else, Boyd mounts an undercover operation inside the walls of the prison. Their investigations reveal a trade in counterfeit pharmaceuticals, a shady firm of private investigators, and an Indian police inspector who may not be who he says he is... and that's only half of it.

It took me a few viewings to warm to this two-parter, and I'm still not sure I'm totally sold on it, particularly given the unsatisfying ending, and I hate the parachuting of David Walliams (one of the most irritating British "comedians" this side of Russell Brand, Jimmy Carr and Ricky Gervais) into the (mercifully brief) role of a high-ranking police official. However, looking back on it, there's a lot to like. Admittedly, a lot of it is stylistic stuff rather than actual narrative material, but I can be engaged by good direction even if the script isn't stellar. I particularly like the opening, which intercuts the discovery of the cargo plane body with shots of the deserted Cold Case Headquarters, the silence broken by brief snippets of dialogue between the original cast of five. I like our introduction to Boyd and Grace, visiting a shop so Boyd can buy a model aeroplane (the significance of this currently unclear). I like the ballsy decision to open the new series with only Boyd and Grace present at CCHQ, Spence having been frogmarched into prison for (at the time) unrevealed reasons. I like the moment where Boyd and Grace re-enact an event from the case using his new model plane and various other toys as props, with the scene going from light-hearted comedy to something more serious as Andy's unexpected arrival causes Boyd's semi-repressed memories of Mel's death to simmer up again. I like the scene in which Mehta's widow, Roshni (wonderfully played by Nina Wadia), realises that the counterfeit medication her husband procured for her actually led to the death of their young child - an extremely emotional scene, heightened by a beautiful piece of piano music that has been used a few times in the show, though never as effectively as here. I like the use of Zoroastrianism, which makes a nice change given how reliant television tends to be on the three "main" monotheistic religions when it wants to inject a dose of the supernatural. Oh, and I love Boyd's nickname for the mummified body: Crispy Duck. He may be going to pieces over Mel's death, but the man has not lost his dark sense of humour.

This was a long review, but that is, to an extent, unavoidable given the turning point that this episode marks in the show's fortunes. Subsequent episode reviews shall, I expect, be considerably briefer.

Waking the Dead: Series 4, Episodes 11 and 12: Shadowplay

Written by Ed Whitmore; Directed by Andy Hay

The final episode of the fourth series, this two-parter marks what is very much the end of an era for Waking the Dead. Given that the events of this episode resonate throughout the subsequent series, I'm afraid avoiding spoilers is simply not going to be an option, so I'm going to be blunt: this is the episode in which Mel dies. Actually, it's also the episode in which we see the last of Frankie, but people tend to forget about that because she doesn't end up being thrown off a top storey balcony and pulped on the bonnet of Boyd's car. In fact, Frankie doesn't actually have an exit storyline at all: in real life, Holly Aird failed to give the production team sufficient notice about her desire to leave the show, and as a result there wasn't enough time to write an on-screen exit for the character. Either way, though, this is the final time we see the entire original team together, and as a result I always find this storyline to be rather bittersweet.

For what it's worth, it's a very strong episode to cap off a very strong season. The case this time is that of a young woman with psychiatric problems who killed her family in an arson attack. Her claims that she was told to do this by a man calling himself "the Shepherd" arise interest in the team when they unearth two further examples of young women committing murder for the same reasons. Barring the similarities in the cases, there is a further connection: all three were patients of Dr. David Carney (Paul Kaye).

As suggested by the title, theme this time round is the Jungian concept of the shadow aspect: the notion that each of us has a repressed "other half" consisting of our fears and weaknesses, which we project on to others. The theme is given flesh in the form of David Carney and his brother Matt (James Larkin), whose highly competitive relationship is at the heart of the episode's mystery. It's threaded throughout both episodes not just in terms of the brothers' relationship but also in the parallels between the various women that have been manipulated. The use of Jungian psychoanalysis is interesting and actually somewhat refreshing, given that media portrayals of psychoanalysis - Waking the Dead included - have a tendency to rely on the Freudian school of thought, boiling everything down to notions of penis envy and the so-called "primal scene". I don't claim to be anything of an expert, but from what little I know of psychoanalysis, I've always found the Jungian approach to be the more interesting of the two (although not necessarily any more convincing).

Anyway, psychobabble aside, what we end up with is a solid conclusion to what is, in my opinion, Waking the Dead's strongest season. Given that it also effectively brings the first "age" of the show to a close, it can also be taken as a solid conclusion to that too. It's cleverly written, artfully directed and emotionally affecting, and you can't ask for much more than that. From here on in, it's into considerably murky waters for the show as it is forced to get back on its feet sans two-fifths of its original cast.

PS. My apologies for not having posted more of these reviews. I've actually now watched to the end of Series 5, but other commitments have prevented me from actually doing write-ups for them yet.

Waking the Dead: Series 4, Episodes 9 and 10: The Hardest Word

Written by Doug Milburn; Directed by Philippa Langdale

The naked body of a man is discovered tied face down to a bed with the word "sorry" carved into his back, following a sex act. This looks like a case for the Murder Investigation Team, but Boyd, who has been investigating a murder with the exact same characteristics, succeeds in getting himself and his team involved in the inquiry, and they soon find themselves forced to work with the crude and abrasive Detective Superintendent Andy Bulmer (Phil Daniels) and his heavy-handed mob. Boyd, however, can't seem to keep his eyes off psychological profiler Dr. Greta Simpson (Emma Fielding), drafted in to help with the inquiry. At Grace and Greta's urging, the team begins to consider that the killer is more than likely someone who was abused him/herself at some point in the past and is now gaining sexual gratification by acting out his/her murderous fantasies.

As I rewatch these episodes, I'm coming to the conclusion that something I'd previously forgotten about Series 4 is how witty it is. Waking the Dead has always had a streak of dark humour about it, but it really comes to the fore in this series. In retrospect, I have a feeling that this may have been intended to make the tragedy that occurs in the final episode all the more horrifying. Anyway, much of the humour here comes from Boyd's obvious infatuation with Greta, and Grace's simmering jealousy. Many long-running series seem to end up featuring undercurrents of Platonic affection between certain characters, and Boyd and Grace are the obvious candidates in Waking the Dead. It's considerably more pronounced here than in the later series, but the two characters often resemble an old married couple with their continual spats and reconciliation, and the combination of mutual respect for and irritation with each other.

When I wrote my original review of Series 4 for DVD Times, I described this two-parter as "the only case in the entire collection that comes even close to striking a bum note", criticising its ending for being abrupt and not particularly satisfying. I was originally similarly critical of Series 2's Thin Air but now consider it one of the best episodes of the entire series, and something similar appears to have happened with The Hardest Word. The conclusion is still far from satisfying, and the actual specifics of the killer's relationship with his/her victims is a little hard to swallow once revealed, but in a sense I don't think the ending was ever intended to by the sort that wraps everything up neatly. Throughout the episode, after all, the old "nature versus nurture" argument is continually brought up, coming down firmly on the "nurture" side. We are continually shown that abuse is a vicious cycles, with victims often becoming abusers themselves. As such, there's no real end to it, and I get the impression that the somewhat ambiguous ending, which still leaves us unclear as to just how complicit one character was in the murders, is meant to reflect that.

Highlight below to reveal spoiler text:

Interestingly, barring the pilot, the second episode of this two-parter is the only episode not to conclude with the familiar Waking the Dead theme tune over the credits. Odd, that.

Waking the Dead: Series 4, Episodes 7 and 8: Anger Management

Written by John Milne & Andy Hay; Directed by Andy Hay

"Not now, Grace. I'm having a post-crisis depression." - Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd

A curious episode, this one, and one which, particularly in its first half, adopts a rather unconventional structure, telling the story in a non-linear fashion and shifting back and forth between different time periods (in fact, the first thing we see is the last thing to happen chronologically). I wonder if this explains the crediting of the director, Andy Hay, as co-writer - the only time this has happened for a Waking the Dead script. I try to imagine the episode playing out in a linear fashion and do have my suspicions that this how it originally started out, with the material being re-ordered to spice it up.

Either way, the result is probably the best episode of the season, primarily because of the humour that ensues from Boyd finally going to see a therapist about his temper - something I'm sure we all agree has been a long time in coming. The therapist, played with acerbic glee by Kerry Fox, forces him to face up to his unpleasant behaviour:

Varley: "When you pace about, how do you react?"
Boyd: "I pace about, I raise my voice, you know..."
Varley: "Stamp your foot and say 'I want it now'?"
Boyd: "Yeah."
Varley: "That's what toddlers do."

Much of the humour comes from the fact that Boyd's behaviour, as a result of bottling up his anger, becomes increasingly more absurd, making his team feel even more uncomfortable around him as a result. And, naturally, by the next episode, everything's back to normal, but still, this slightly more even-tempered Boyd, while brief, makes for a nice change of pace.

The main case, meanwhile, focuses on the death of a man in a hostel, found with a bullet in his skull. The police assume it to be a suicide, but Frankie is convinced that the investigation has been botched and organises for the Cold Case Squad to take a look. Suspicion soon falls upon Sam Jacobs (Nigel Terry), a man who has just completed a stretch in prison for viciously assaulting a man who raped his wife. Sam claims to have put his violent past behind him, but, through a series of flashbacks and encounters with people from his past life, we soon come to learn that his acts of violence extend far beyond merely beating up a rapist.

Nigel Terry, the individual playing Sam Jacobs, is a gifted actor who shows up quite often in British TV series (you name it, he's probably been in it) and, in my opinion, doesn't get the credit he deserves. He was excellent in the opening two episodes of the previous series of Casualty as an animal rights activist whose home-made bomb unintentionally detonated in a crowded street, and, in Anger Management, he gives what I feel is his best performance that I've seen. Sam is a complex character, and, while there's never any doubt that he has secrets to hide, the precise nature of these secrets remains unclear until the end, and he is portrayed in such a manner that, even when we learn the full extent of his dark past, it's hard to lose sympathy with him. The dual nature of his life is nicely realised in many ways, among them a curious scene in which he and his family, despite being Buddhists, are shown to still bring in the Sabbath (their background is Jewish). Props also to the director for the rather inventive flamenco dance sequence which is intercut with a character preparing to break into CCHQ to retrieve some vital evidence.

Waking the Dead: Series 4, Episodes 5 and 6: Fugue States

Written by Ed Whitmore; Directed by Ben Bolt

I have one significant complaint about this episode, and that's the suspension of disbelief required in order to accept the massive coincidence involving one character and the revelations regarding his/her relationship with another. Otherwise, this is cracking story, one of the very best of the series, which sees the team investigating the disappearance of a twin brother and sister during the Notting Hill carnival of 1990. The case is reopened when a DNA check on a young homeless man injured when he steps in front of a car reveals him to be the boy, Jason (Joe Armstrong), but a bout of insomnia (real or faked?) prevents him from revealing where he has been for nearly 15 years... or the whereabouts his sister, Cindy. In digging into the circumstances surrounding Jason's disappearance, the team uncovers a history of child abuse and dodgy dealings involving crooked goings-on with social services and an abduction conspiracy.

Any episode involving a missing child runs the risk of becoming repetitive given Boyd's own experiences in this area, and yes, it's true that he clearly sees Jason as something of a surrogate for his own missing son, becoming uncharacteristically protective of him (even turning down an opportunity to uncover further evidence as to where he has been because he is afraid it will traumatise him). However, the main personal thrust of this episode, unusually, falls on Mel's shoulders, following the revelation that she was in fact born Mary Price and, at a young age, was forcibly removed from her mother (deemed mentally unfit to care for her) and placed with foster parents. (This in turn results in a noticeable continuity gaffe in the sixth series when the issue of Mel's ancestry is raised, but I'll cover that at a later date.)

I've said this previously, but I'll repeat it here: I think Claire Goose is seriously underappreciated as an actor. Far from simply being a pretty face, she gives the characters she plays a degree of authenticity beyond what is on the page. When she was in Casualty, she gave what is in my opinion the best performance any actor has ever delivered in that show, in the episode Love Me Tender, and she does much the same here, imbuing the character enough depth that, when she flies off the handle and acts impulsively, you don't simply think she's being self-centred and projecting her own personal situation on to the ongoing investigation. Here, she commits a horrific act that is purely the result of her heightened emotional state, resulting in her jumping to the wrong conclusion as to a suspect's intentions, but she somehow retains our sympathy throughout.

Elsewhere, we get the usual witty banter between the team. I previously said Ed Whitmore's scripts tended to be drier than, say, Stephen Davis', but I should probably now take that back, as there are some absolute corkers in this episodes' dialogue, some of them rather clever. It's also, for once, reasonably coherent throughout, although I did find myself having to pause a couple of times to work out exactly what was going on in my head. Massive coincidence aside, it's all pretty logical too. A solid entry and the point at which this season, after a slightly rocky start with In Sight of the Lord, finds its feet before going to enjoy a continuous run of high quality episodes until its end.

Waking the Dead: Series 4, Episodes 3 and 4: False Flag

Written by Stephen Davis; Directed by Suri Krishnamma

This was Stephen Davis' final episode of Waking the Dead, and it's a good one, not least because it feature the top brass finally doing what she should have done for ages now: commission a psychological report on Boyd. This is part of a rather interesting storyline which involves plans on the part of the Assistant Commissioner to either dismantle the Cold Case Squad or at the very least bring it under her direct jurisdiction. The catalyst for this is a breach of protocol in which Boyd admits to having entered a property without the appropriate warrant. As a result, the rest of the team feels that he has jeopardised their jobs. As later becomes clear, however, the culprit was in fact not Boyd but Spence: Boyd took the rap because he didn't want Spence's prospects of promotion to be affected. It's little moments like these that help make the characters more multi-faceted, something that is particularly important given Boyd's ever-increasing instability.

Like one of the writers' previous episodes, Special Relationships, this one ventures into political conspiracy territory, beginning with the discovery of a man's body in a car, a bullet through his head and an unexploded bomb strapped underneath. The body is identified as that of Gerald Doyle (Dan Morgan), a young man with decidedly pro-Republican views on the conflict in Northern Ireland, and his death is dated to the late 1970s, roughly coinciding with the assassination of Duncan Sanderson (Christopher Strauli), a prominent Conservative MP whose attitude towards Republicanism was nothing if not hard-line. Sanderson was killed by a bomb strapped under his car, and the similarity of the modus operandi between the two murders leads Boyd and the team to suspect a connection. Working on the hypothesis that Doyle was part of a Republican splinter group, they begin to uncover disturbing evidence suggesting that he and several other like-minded individuals were in fact assassinated at the behest of the British government.

As I've said before on numerous occasions, Waking the Dead is nothing if not a confusing programme, and, whenever they tackle high level conspiracies, things have a tendency to get really confusing. This is certainly the case here, and once again I found myself beginning to wonder if I'd lost my marbles during the final half-hour, but along the way there is some choice interaction between the team to keep the viewer engaged. Particularly choice are Grace's attempts to build a profile of the uncooperative Boyd, not to mention a particularly delicious opportunity to watch the man squirm in which Frankie assures him she can defuse an unexploded bomb, before proceeding to ask him which colour of wire he thinks she should cut first. It all gets a tad muddled towards the end, and the denouement for the individual behind the killings is less than satisfactory, but it's once again a strong episode and a nice swansong for a writer whose standard of episodes has been consistently high.

Holby connections: Peter De Jersey, who plays Dr. Chris Reed in this episode, appeared in Holby City as charge nurse Steve Waring between Series 3 and 5.

Waking the Dead: Series 4, Episodes 1 and 2: In Sight of the Lord

Written by Tony McHale; Directed by Andy Hay

Shortly after Waking the Dead's third series had completed its initial run, it won an Emmy (oddly enough, for what I consider the weakest episode of that series, Multistorey). The result was that, for the fourth series, it received an extended run of twelve episodes, up from the usual eight. The same producer, Richard Burrell, remained on board, and he succeeded in securing the same key writers who had been responsible for the show's growth.

Oddly enough, though, Series 4 starts with a storyline penned by an outsider. Tony McHale is the creator and current executive producer/lead writer of Holby City; he also wrote and directed several episodes of Casualty between Series 9 and 14. His scripts, particularly of late, have had something of an unhealthy obsession with religion, Christianity to be precise. In fact, it seems to be his goal to get as many storylines revolving around religion as possible in the show under his guidance. This episode of Waking the Dead is no exception, offering up a whole lot of cryptic biblical references in a storyline which involves a serial killer hammering nine inch nails into the skulls of various men who were formerly soldiers in a Second World War army battalion.

This two-parter is unusual in that whereas normally Waking the Dead's storylines start off reasonably logical and then throw you for a loop in the final half-hour, it's actually the other way round this time. That's not to say that the episode is particularly difficult to follow, but, for the first hour and a half, the writing is rather choppy, lurching from one plot development to another without a clear sense of logical progression. Boyd and the team make several rather odd leaps in logic, and while the majority of them don't end up playing out (such as Boyd's seemingly out-of-the-blue suggestion that the victims could have been Communists and were therefore assassinated for their political beliefs), I get the sense that McHale knew where he wanted to end up but had a bit of trouble actually getting there.

Actually, of all the Waking the Dead storylines, this is probably actually the most giallo-like of the lot, not only in terms of the killer's motivation but also his attire: he wears a black coat, black fedora and black gloves, and at one point even employs the sort of harsh whisper that many a giallo killer has been known to employ in order to disguise his voice. The director, Andy Hay, has clearly watched some Argento in his time.

Elsewhere, it's business as usual. Boyd has sprouted a rather alarming amount of facial hair, which in turn seems to have done nothing for his temper ("I don't give a shit about your rights!" he bellows at one suspect who has asked for his lawyer to be present). Meanwhile, see if you can spot how often Frankie is conveniently positioned behind a table or another character: the actress, Holly Aird, was pregnant at the time, and, as the series progressed, the production team had to resort to greater and greater lengths to conceal her ballooning stomach.

Waking the Dead: Series 3, Episodes 7 and 8: Final Cut

Written by Stephen Davis; Directed by Betsan Morris Evans

It's always struck be that, apart from Boyd, the only character in Waking the Dead whose past we know anything about is Spence. He would end up being the main focus of the Series 5 finale, and here, two years earlier, his childhood comes back to haunt him in a rather convoluted storyline that also ropes in his mother and missing father. That's about as personal as things ever get in this show, and it's somewhat odd, given that I've always felt that Spence was the least interesting of the original line-up of characters (now, once the insufferable Eve arrives for Series 6, that's another matter entirely...). I'm not convinced that the revelations of this episode do anything for the character of Spence, given that they are never referenced again and really don't succeed in making him any more interesting, but at least his role is something more than functional in this episode.

Anyway, what follows is an extremely convoluted plot, even by Waking the Dead's standards, which somehow ties together the Mafia, drug smuggling, an extremely violent movie, bizarre burial rituals in a black community, numerous dead bodies concealed in a derelict building, and Ken Russell as a foul-mouthed, booze-soaked director with an overinflated opinion of his own abilities (haha). I've seen this one three times now and I'm still not entirely convinced I've worked it all out, but at least I'm not completely scratching my head in confusion as I was with Walking on Water earlier in the series. As with that episode, the first part is better than the second, and I suspect that has a lot to do with the face that most of the confusion emerges in the final 30 minutes, but, that said, it's a strong episode overall and an effective end to a series that has, barring the rather forgettable season premiere, turned out to be better than I remembered. Oh, and, to the best of my knowledge, it's also the only episode to include a character using the word "fuck". You rebels!

Holby connections: Camelia Baptiste is played by Sharon D. Clarke, who currently appears in Holby City as consultant Lola Griffin.

Waking the Dead: Series 3, Episodes 5 and 6: Breaking Glass

Written by Stephen Davis; Directed by David Thacker

"Yes, it is a speculation, Grace. I'm allowed to speculate - in fact I get paid to speculate." - Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd

I'm slightly surprised, in retrospect, that I'd completely forgotten about this episode, given that, not long after I started watching it the other night, I immediately remembered it as one of my favourites. The investigation focuses on a young man, Terence Tanner (Charlie Creed-Miles), who, during a session of hypnotherapy, uncovered repressed memories of the abuse he suffered as a child in a care home. Initially sceptical, Boyd quickly becomes convinced that all is not right when the man in question is discovered to be someone other than who he claimed to be, and abruptly disappears from his home armed with a gun. Searching his computer reveals that he may be looking for a man he knows as "Papa Doc", his former abuser. However, given that the man widely believed to be Papa Doc, Peter Murdoch, committed suicide years ago, the team have to contend with the fact that, if he isn't stopped, Tanner may end up hurting the wrong man... unless, that is, Murdoch was framed.

Perhaps what is most effective about this episode is the way in which it intermingles past and present without resorting to any of the traditional flashback cutting associated with film and television. Instead, the director, David Thacker, seamlessly shifts between the two simply by moving the camera and, through various tricks, giving off the impression of having moved from one location and/or time period to another. From a purely logistical point of view, it must have been a nightmare to setup.

Beyond the aesthetics, though, we also have an excellent script, one which provides a fascinating look at the nature of having two distinct personalities and how it occurs in the first place (often as a result of unbearable trauma). As tends to be the case with Stephen Davis' episodes, the treatment of the subject matter, while sensitive, is not above throwing in the odd bit of dry wit to lighten the mood. "I've got some bad memories, but I haven't split my personality," says Mel. "How do you know?" replies Frankie. I really miss this sort of banter between the team, and I'm acutely aware that it will disappear all too soon when two members of the cast are lost at the end of Series 4. We also get an interesting and unusually convincing (for television) portrayal of what this layman takes to be autism or Asperger syndrome, in which I detect something of the hand of creator/consulting producer Barbara Machin, given certain similarities between this and her equally effective portrayal of bipolar disorder in her Series 13 Casualty episode, One from the Heart.

Waking the Dead: Series 3, Episodes 3 and 4: Walking on Water

Written by Simon Mirren; Directed by Andy Hay

After yet another extended delay, I finally get back into Waking the Dead's third series, and with a significantly better episode than the season premiere. Taking the same path as Series 2's Special Relationships, the plot this time focuses on a man, Mark Lovell (Craig Kelly), who has recently been acquitted of the murder of his adoptive father, Thomas, an event which took place almost a decade ago. On the night of the murder, four other members of the family vanished without a trace along with their boat. When the latter is discovered off the coast near the family home and salvaged, Boyd reopens the investigation, the assumption being that, if they can find out what happened to the rest of the family, they stand a good chance of finding Thomas' real killer. Unfortunately, since he was locked up, Mark has changed - dramatically so. He is now Maria, and Maria is proving to be less than cooperative when it comes to dredging up Mark's past.

It's at this stage that Waking the Dead becomes very, very confusing, and I must confess that, despite having now seen the episode three times, I'm still completely flummoxed by what is supposed to be going on in the final twenty minutes. It doesn't help that the writer, Simon Mirren, inserts a Big Huge Plot Twist out of left field, involving conspiracies, espionage and drug smuggling, and it's a shame, because everything leading up to these final twenty minutes is very good. I love the way the script pokes fun at Boyd's discomfort when faced with Mark/Maria. Much like with David Hemmings' character in Argento's Profondo Rosso, Boyd isn't disgusted by the sight of a man dressed as a woman: he simply doesn't know how to deal with the situation. I've said it before and I'll say it again: for all his tantrums and crudity, Boyd is actually a pretty liberal fellow, something of a rarity in TV detectives. (When Spence asks how Mark's gender disorder affects his status as a suspect, Boyd snaps back "It doesn't.")

There's some nice direction in this episode too, including a very neat shot of a body being slid out of a storage freezer, shown from the point of view of the body. On the other hand, I'm not wild about the various shots of the dead appearing and vanishing while Frankie is working alone on the salvaged boat. It's getting a little too close to the pseudo-mysticism that plagued some of the later episodes for my liking.

Holby connections: The writer of this episode, Simon Mirren, penned several episodes of Casualty during the Series 13-14 period (he's also Helen Mirren's nephew), while Craig Kelly, who plays Mark Lovell, starred as SHO Daniel Perryman throughout Casualty's tenth series.

Waking the Dead: Series 3, Episodes 1 and 2: Multistorey

Written by Ed Whitmore; Directed by Robert Bierman

After a somewhat lengthy break, I return to my Waking the Dead reviews and plunge into the show's third series. For some reason, Series 3 is always the one that I have the most trouble remembering: ultimately, only the final episode stands out in my mind, and that's only because it's unusually character-driven for Waking the Dead at this stage in its history. That's not to say that Series 3 is in any way poor, but it's not particularly memorable, and it has the unfortunate disadvantage of starting with what was, at the time, the programme's weakest storyline to date.

The focus is on a mass shooting which took place in 1996 when a lone gunman, Carl Mackenzie (Sean Pertwee), murdered or injured several pedestrians in the high street from the vantage point of the top floor of a multi-storey car park. In the present day, the case is up for appeal. Pertwee always claimed his innocence, stating that he had in fact been kidnapped and framed by the real gunman, but two witness reports, including that of the police officer who succeeded in apprehending him, state that they saw him with the gun in his hands...

It's hard to put my finger on what it is about Multistorey that doesn't work. On paper, it's actually a very interesting scenario, but for some reason none of it really pulls together. There's no real sense of urgency, despite Boyd have a personal connection in the form of having been friends with a police officer who was killed in the massacre, and despite him (temporarily) concealing evidence when an eyewitness' account is revealed to have been less than reliable. None of the characters, not even the accused, really come to life, and it ultimately all feels a little pedestrian.

On a side note, after swapping producers every year since the pilot, the show finally got itself a long-term producer in the form of Richard Burrell, who remained in that role until the end of Series 5 and has since gone on to produce a diverse array of programmes for the BBC, including the first series of the recent re-imagining of Robin Hood, The Invisibles and Filth: The Mary Whitehouse Story. Oh, and, on a purely trivial note, it never ceases to amaze me how much the moustache and beard Spence adopts as of this episode changes his appearance, adding at least ten years to him and greatly increasing his stature.

Holby connections: Robert Pugh (Robert Cross in this episode) played paramedic Andy Ponting in the first two series of Casualty, while Kim Vithana (Beth Downing in this episode) played midwife Rosie Sattar between Series 5 and 7 of Holby City.

Waking the Dead: Series 2, Episodes 7 and 8: Thin Air

Written by Ed Whitmore; Directed by Edward Bennett

In 1989, 18-year-old Joanna Gold (Sophie Winkleman) vanished without a trace while walking on Hampstead Heath with her parents, brother and sister. Flash forward to the present day, and the striking red dress Joanna was last seen wearing is discovered, in immaculate condition, in a storage facility. It turns out that the facility is being rented by an Alec Garvey (Justin Salinger), a man with a track record for stalking girls. Being leaned on by the Commissioner to get a result, any result, Boyd charges Garvey, resulting in his attempted suicide. Faced with the horrible prospect that he fingered the wrong man, Boyd reopens the case and goes back to the fateful day of Joanna's disappearance, digging up disturbing family secrets and discovering that Joanna Gold was not as squeaky-clean as the public have been led to believe.

This is one of my all-time favourite episodes of Waking the Dead, and I think one of the reasons why it works so well is that it's unusually creepy. At its heart we have a striking and frankly baffling image - a girl in a red dress simply vanishing into thin air on a clear day in an open space - and, as the investigation intensifies, all sorts of guilty secrets come to the fore. The Golds put up a front of being model members of society, but it's clear from the outset that they are all as guilty as sin and each have something the hide. It helps that we have a superb array of actors playing the key members of the family: Roger Allam, as the father, can't help but look suspicious, and everything about his demeanour screams "hostile" from the second Boyd encounters him, while Cherie Lunghi works wonders as his brittle wife. However, the best performance comes from Sophie Winkleman (whom you might know as Big Suze in Peep Show - a very different role), who plays both Joanna Gold and the present-day incarnation of her younger sister Clara. The resemblance is intended to be uncanny, but it's not until the final fifteen minutes that we realise just how disturbing this actually is.

This was the first episode to be written by Ed Whitmore, who would become Waking the Dead's key writer until the regime change at the end of Series 5, penning a total of six two-parters. Whitmore's scripts are drier than those written by Stephen Davis, but I think he tends to do better at connecting the A-to-B plot elements, gradually teasing out information and taking the investigative team down unexpected avenues. Particularly well-handled is a plot development that I accused of being tacked-on when I wrote my review of the Series 2 DVD set for DVD Times, but which in retrospect I now see is actually foreshadowed quite brilliantly, particularly in the curious relationship that develops between Boyd and Clara. It's one of these moments that leaves you screaming "No! No!" at the screen as Boyd digs his own grave, and the actions that he commits in order to get to the bottom of the mystery are reckless in the extreme, culminating in him going for a midnight jaunt on Hampstead Heath with Clara wearing Joanna's red dress. However, when you consider the extent to which his own child's disappearance (mentioned briefly but, thankfully, not flogged to death), it's possible to find reason in his obsessive behaviour.

On a side note, this episode indirectly reveals more about our core cast of characters than all of the previous ones put together. In addition to the revelation that Grace was at one point married with two sons (the marriage didn't last), and that Mel lives alone but has "lots of friends", we discover that Spence previously considered jacking in his career as a policeman and going into business with his entrepreneur friend, and that, in 1989, Frankie spent the summer in Cyprus having a wild affair with a tattoo artist named Andreas (Grace's response of "Ooooh, Andreas!" being the one time in the series that Sue Johnston's performance reminds me of her part in The Royle Family). She too, it seems, was sorely tempted to abandon her career, but decided that, although the sex was great, she wasn't in love. This focus is, as ever, on Boyd, but it's these little moments that help build up a bigger picture of the rest of the cast without rubbing our faces in their personal lives.

Series 2 is, on the whole, not as consistent as Series 1. While this means that we do get a slightly weaker episode than we've been used to seeing up until now, Deathwatch, it does also provide us with the best episode so far, Thin Air. In the next instalment, we'll be venturing into Series 3, which, to tell the truth, I can recall little of, before heading towards, in my opinion, the best series, Series 4.

Waking the Dead: Series 2, Episodes 5 and 6: Special Relationships

Written by Stephen Davis; Directed by David Thacker

Around a year ago, the body of Home Office Advisor Katherine Reed (Francesca Ryan) was discovered by burglar Ricky Taft (Del Synnott) during a routine break-in. Flash forward to the present, and Taft has just been acquitted of killing her. With the investigation closed, it becomes a cold case and is immediately sent the way of Boyd and company... along with a humourless Home Office auditor (the two are completely unconnected, naturally). The team's investigations reveal a maze of conspiracies and cover-ups, and the more digging that is done into Katherine Reed's private life, the less it makes sense.

This is probably the most convoluted Waking the Dead story so far, and one that firmly establishes the series' penchant for outlandish explanations. It appears that almost everyone is/was screwing everyone else, both literally and figuratively. In order to delve into this and show just how mixed up everything is, I'm afraid I'm going to have to enter into spoiler territory.

Highlight below to reveal spoiler text:

See what I mean about complexity? And I haven't even got into Boyd's past relationship with the investigating DI in Katherine's murder, Jess Worrall (Ruth Gemmell), his signing and flouting of the Official Secrets Act, an interview with an extremely uncooperative CIA operative and a grand conspiracy involving Boyd suspecting either MI5 or the CIA of assassinating Katherine. There's a massive amount of stuff going on here, and I'm not convinced that it all comes together in an entirely satisfying way (the Home Office auditor, in particular, feels somewhat tacked on and is brushed aside just over 20 minutes into the second part, when Boyd sends her packing), but it does strike me as quite clever in its own way. It also helps that, as with the previous episode, also penned by Stephen Davis, this one is rather witty, poking fun at the Boyd character and his thinly-veiled fear (or perhaps misunderstanding) of tough women. The angry, over the top Boyd of later years is definitely beginning to take shape here, by the way, culminating in him bawling out Grace, to the best of my recollection the first time this has happened. (Oddly enough, it would take Grace a further four years to declare "enough is enough".)

Waking the Dead: Series 2, Episodes 3 and 4: Deathwatch

Written by Stephen Davis; Directed by Maurice Phillips

Also known as "The One With David Hemmings In It". The man himself doesn't look at all well (his appearance was filmed just over a year before he suffered a fatal heart attack), but it's a pleasure to see such a legend in the series, and he gives a good performance. It's one that initially seems to be that of a grumpy ex-cop, disparaging of the newfangled investigative methods and reminiscing about a time when there was no paperwork and the police went by their instincts, but one that, in the second hour, reveals considerable complexities and twists things in a different direction. It's not exactly surprising that Hemmings' character has something to hide - he's the major guest star, after all - but everyone in this episode is keeping a secret of some sort, so that's not giving much away.

Anyway, the plot focuses on the death, under suspicious circumstances, of Harold Newman (Howard Goorney), an elderly man living in a nursing home. It becomes clear that he died with a guilty conscience, leaving a list of twelve people whose deaths he claims to have caused. The mysterious twelve turn out to have comprised the jury who condemned East End gangster Frank Sutton (Toby Mace) to death in 1963. Working with the assumption that Newman was a contract killer, Boyd and the CCS set out to find out for whom he was working, and who would now want him dead.

So follows a rather convoluted tale that, to be perfectly honest, doesn't really play fair with the audience, by giving us a killer who, prior to being identified, only appears in a single throwaway scene and has a single line of dialogue. Of course, he's ultimately only a means to an end, as the real thrust of the plot takes place nearly 40 years in the past, but it's somewhat frustrating nonetheless. What makes up for this is, as is often the case in the early episodes, the interaction between the team. The explosive, absurd side of Boyd is now firmly established, but there is still degree of warmth between him and his colleagues that is almost completely absent in the most recent episodes. There is a dizzying array of genuinely amusing dialogue in this episode, much of it involving Grace's birthday celebrations. (My favourite is Boyds "All right, all right, the shopping channel's closed down. Now it's time for the news.")

Holby connections: David Ashton, who plays Father Cameron in this episode, wrote several episodes of Casualty during Series 2 and 3, while Ronald Pickup, who plays Charles Sutton, had a recurring role in Holby City about a year back as Lord Byrne.

Waking the Dead: Series 2, Episodes 1 and 2: Life Sentence

Written by John Milne; Directed by Edward Bennett

A playing card, the Queen of Hearts, is left on the windscreen of Dr. Claire Delaney (Susannah Harker), who, several years ago, was the first of six women to be abducted by Thomas Rice (Samuel West), and the only one to survive. All the others were raped and murdered, and, on each occasion, a pack of playing cards was delivered to the investigating officer, with the instructions that he gamble for the victim's life by picking a card. Now, working under the assumption that Rice in fact had an accomplice, Boyd and his team set out to re-interview the notoriously slippery killer, now serving a life sentence.

It strikes me that this plot is rather similar to that of Dario Argento's The Card Player, albeit without the Internet factor. This episode initially aired on September 2nd 2002, and The Card Player premiered in Italy in January 2004. Now, I'm not for a minute going to suggest that Dario Argento spends his time watching British television to get ideas for his film plots, but the likeness is nonetheless striking. The other point of reference, of course, is The Silence of the Lambs, the parallels being virtually impossible to ignore when you consider Rice's "quid pro quo" attitude and Boyd's use of Mel as a honey trap of sorts. Of course, Samuel West is no Anthony Hopkins and Claire Goose, good as she is, is no Jodie Foster, but the encounters between them (and Grace) are well-written and result in one of Waking the Dead's truly tense scenes, as Rice systematically blocks his cell's security cameras with various paintings, circling around Mel as he moves in for the kill.

Otherwise, this turns out to be a fairly conventional, albeit nasty, tale of kidnapping and murder. Certainly, after tales of bodies being found in churches and photojournalists burning to death in Series 1, this one seems a bit more like "real life", while certain aspects of this case do bear a passing resemblance to the abduction storyline of the pilot. It's an assured start to the second series, however, and one with a set of suspects that is manageable and at the same time not so limited as to make the culprit seem obvious. Actually, several people are hiding something, and the various allegiances are not all what you would expect.

Incidentally, from this episode onwards, the team have moved into their permanent location - the rather snazzy-looking headquarters with the transparent evidence boards and a lack of sufficient lighting. The episode also contains what is, to the best of my recollection, the first time Boyd uses his favourite interview technique of leaning forward and asking a suspect a question, then asking it again ONLY THIS TIME SHOUTING IT SO LOUD THE SPIT FLIES OUT OF HIS MOUTH. Truly, a man of tact and subtlety.

Holby connections: Paterson Joseph, who plays Dermot Sullivan in this episode, starred in Casualty as nurse Mark Grace from Series 12 to mid-Series 13. Nowadays, though, he is probably best known as Johnson in Peep Show.

Waking the Dead: Series 1, Episodes 7 and 8: Every Breath You Take

Written by Barbara Machin; Directed by Gary Love

"You know when you put a fork in a sausage and it bursts? Well, it's the same with brain matter." - Dr. Frankie Wharton

A body is fished out of the Thames, and is identified as that of missing police sergeant Debbie Britten (Joanne Farrell). Given that Debbie was something of a poster child for the police force, DAC Christie orders Boyd to drop everything and spare no expense in bringing her killer to justice. Prior to her disappearance, Debbie attracted a number of stalkers, among them Michael Skinner (Andrew Buckley) and Christopher Redford (Lee Ross), both of whom emerge as prime suspects. However, Boyd's old friend Steven Maitland (Thomas Lockyer), who worked on the hunt for Debbie at the time of her disappearance, knows more than he is letting on, and an illicit check on the police DNA database reveals that his relationship with her was far from strictly professional.

Series 1, as a whole, is comprised of four very good self-contained stories, and I'm of the opinion that this one is, overall, the best of the bunch. Actually, it's a shame this was the last episode Barbara Machin wrote of her own show. One thing I appreciate about her scripts is her attention to procedural detail. Whereas I tend to find that most writers working within the confines of so-called precinct dramas tend to use the basic formula (cop show, medical drama, etc.) as a framework upon which to hang a storyline about relationships (not necessarily of the romantic variety) between various characters, Machin is every bit as interested in the nitty-gritty of what the various professionals do, and will spend a lot of time recreating procedure simply because it can be compelling in and of itself. In this storyline, a considerable amount of time is spent showing how Frankie locates some bullets that have been concealed at the scene of the crime. It's fascinating to watch and, given Machin's track record for comprehensive research, no doubt completely accurate. I've always been more interested in the psychological than the scientific side of things, however, so the most interesting part of the episode, for me, is the way in which it constructs two distinct profiles for Debbie's two obsessive stalkers. Likewise, there's a twist at the end that comes slightly out of left field, but in retrospect it does make a great deal of sense.

Elsewhere, the more compulsive, aggressive side of Boyd's personality begins to emerge. This is certainly the first time we see him literally bawling at his subordinates and suspects, and on the whole the level of dysfunction between members of the team is much higher here than it has been until now. There are still some nicely touching moments, though, including Boyd telling Grace about his own past stalker-like behaviour towards a woman about whom he became obsessed ("But you see, ultimately, you knew when no meant no," Grace points out; "No, I married her," replies Boyd), and Boyd's apology to Frankie after putting her job on the line ("I love you, Frankie" - I suspect you have to see it for yourself to get it).

Holby connections: Gary Love directed a number of episodes of Casualty between Series 12 and 14, among them my second-favourite episode of all time, Love Me Tender, which contains what can reasonably considered to be Claire Goose's finest performance to date. This episode has a considerably more ambitious look than that of the rest of the first series as a whole.

Update, June 16th, 2008 12:05 PM: Incidentally, something I forgot to mention last night is that, in this episode, Grace states that she has a thesis to work on and "kids I never see". Later episodes, in which it is stated that Grace never married or had children, directly contradict this.

Waking the Dead: Series 1, Episodes 5 and 6: A Simple Sacrifice

Written by Simon Mirren; Directed by Robert Del Maestro

This is probably the weakest storyline of the first series, although not because it's in any way bad. On the contrary, Series 1 is remarkably solid overall, and this merely sticks out as the least impressive of a very impressive bunch. The plot this time round focuses on the impending release of Annie Keel (Harriet Walter), a woman who, nearly 25 years ago, confessed to stabbing to death her husband and her son's friend, who was sleeping over at the time, but leaving her own son, Sam, alive. The case is re-opened in 2001 due to two factors: first of all, the evidence appears flimsy and Annie's confession too pat (the implication being that she is covering up for someone else). Secondly, someone has been sending the police anonymous letters claiming that Annie is innocent and that he/she knows who the real culprit is. Finally, Grace doesn't believe that the attacks fit the profile of a woman, particularly a mother.

Quickly, it becomes apparent that the key to solving the mystery rests with Sam Keel (Cal Macaninch). Why was he left alive when the other child was killed? It's therefore somewhat irritating that Boyd and his team take absolutely no steps towards tracking him down until very late in the game. Equally frustrating is the fact that, early on in the second part of this story, it becomes fairly clear who the real culprit, the same person who is now writing to the police, is. This is not because the evidence allows the viewer to work out why he/she would commit the crime, but simply because what we know about the killer's gender from flashbacks allows us to rule out various other parties, eventually leaving us with two possible suspects, only one of whom is in a position to be sending the police information by the final half-hour.

Systematic elimination of this sort is not necessarily a bad thing (and I'm sure it's the sort of thing the police find themselves faced with all the time), but it's slightly unsatisfying in a detective drama because it leaves the audience in a position of knowing who did it but not having the faintest clue why. It also provides us with information that the police themselves do not possess (the flashbacks), which in turn makes their unearthing of his/her identity a bit too convenient. When he/she does reveal his/her motives, during a particularly tense stand-off, they seem fairly pat (his/her reason for killing Sam's friend is particularly anticlimactic) and don't really lead to a satisfying conclusion. Far more interesting is why Annie Keel took the blame, and it's this element that helps keep the episode above water.

Holby connections: a shedload. The writer, Simon Mirren, penned several episodes of Casualty during the Series 13-14 period, while the director, Robert Del Maestro, has helmed many episodes of both Casualty and Holby City over the years. The adult Sam Keel is played by Cal Macaninch, better known as DI John Keenan in Holby Blue, while Rakie Ayola (nurse Kyla Tyson in present day Holby City) has a semi-important role here as a prison officer.

Waking the Dead: Series 1, Episodes 3 and 4: The Blind Beggar

Written by John Milne; Directed by Robert Knights

Before reviewing the episodes themselves, I must take a minute to share with you the moment, about a third of the way into the second part, where I actually had to pause my DVD to allow myself a good old-fashioned chortle. The object of my derision was not this episode itself but rather the most recent series of Waking the Dead. You see, in Series 7, we finally get to meet Boyd's son, who ran away at some point in the past and has been missing, presumed dead for several years. In Series 7, the character is called Luke.

In The Blind Beggar, Boyd calls him Joe.

At least ten times.

Savour that for a moment. Go on, re-read what I've just typed and think very hard about it. The disappearance of Boyd's son is, understandably, an extremely significant moment in the character's life and it has played a major role in defining his personality and his reasons for doing his job. And yet the people responsible for putting together the most recent series clearly considered it so trivial that they didn't even bother to get the character's name right. It's no wonder Boyd's personality has been so heavily mangled in recent years - if you can't remember a simple name, what hope do you have of getting to grips with characterisation?

But I digress. The Blind Beggar stands out as a particularly good episode in the Waking the Dead canon. Slow to get going, this one tonally feels closer to an episode of Inspector Morse than your average Waking the Dead fare, with lots of slow, contemplative wanders through cloisters and incidental choral music. The plot deals with the discovery of a body during a routine excavation in the crypt of a Catholic church. The concealment of the body is dated to around the time that a previous excavation was carried out on the same area by a man named Gabriel Hare, who later appears to have committed suicide after being virtually excommunicated by the church's incredibly nasty parishioner, Father Sebastian Stuart (Barry Morse).

Fairly quickly, it becomes apparent that the body is likely to be that of Nick Bowen, a young man who disappeared in 1982, at around the time of the initial excavation, but the story is considerably more complicated than it appears to be at face value. This is a confusing episode even by Waking the Dead's standards, spinning a long and tortuous yarn through a close-knit community seemingly populated almost entirely by people with their own long-kept secrets and personal vendettas against each other. It's a tribute to the writing of John Milne, who penned several episodes throughout the show's classic period (Series 1-4), this it remains comprehensible despite the large cast of characters and convoluted family trees.

The episode also benefits from an excellent performance from guest star Annette Crosbie (Mrs. Victor Meldrew herself). The unwritten rule of Waking the Dead seems to be that the character played by the highest profile guest actor either did the killing or knows something about it (hence, when David Hemmings shows up in the second series, try as he might to keep his head down, he just doesn't stand a chance), but the fun in this episode comes from working out precisely what Crosbie's character knows or did. The character is multi-faceted and extremely conflicted, and it's a testament to Crosbie's performance that she remains sympathetic even when it becomes clear that she has behaved quite abominably.

Elsewhere, we get hints at Boyd's disdain for religion: he tells us he only goes to church for "hatchings, matchings and dispatchings", and reacts with barely disguised contempt when a priest wishes to reclaim various sacraments discovered with the body. Grace, incidentally, is portrayed here as a semi-lapsed Catholic, which hasn't really been explored since despite there having been various opportunities to do so (I'm thinking particularly of the Series 5 storyline in which it is revealed that she had an abortion at some point in the 80s). It does, however, shed some light on he rather rigorous defence of religion in the Series 7 episode Skin when an irate Boyd postulates that the only difference between neo-Nazis and priests is the colour of their uniforms. (Yeah, you try to rationalise that one.)

Some choice dialogue, too, my favourite line being Frankie's exclamation, while working in the church crypt, that she wants to take up smoking so she can have an excuse to go outside to shout and swear every once in a while.