New Tricks Series 4

Diah — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 07:03:25 +0000

The unresolved crimes featured in ‘New Tricks’ are far from trivial, but the series itself boasts some interesting trivia. Did you know…

They may have handed in their badges and collected their pensions years ago, but Lane, Standing and Halford are back for a fourth series, still working at the London Metropolitan Police as civilians investigating unsolved crimes as part of boss Pullman’s team, Unsolved Crime and Open Case Squad (UCOS). Led by Pullman, who spends half her time trying to reign them in, the three men investigate an array of challenging and disturbing crimes.

You’d have to be very brave to tell this motley crew they are too old to chase criminals. Whatever they lack in agility, they more than make up for in their years of experience. Out of touch with modern policing, Jack, Brian and Gerry thrive on bending and even breaking the rules to get a result; something which certainly annoys Pullman. The question is: will Pullman stop them or join them in doing just about anything to get to the truth?

Amongst the many cases the team have to deal with in the fourth series, they head to the big top to investigate the murder of a circus owner and ringmaster, and look into the case of a rich old lady who loved her cats more than her relatives, leaving the cats all her money in her will.

Episode 1 – Casualty

Hell-bent on avenging his wife’s death, Jack Halford is prepared to risk everything to kill the man responsible, Ricky Hanson. As Detective Superintendent Sandra Pullman becomes aware of the dangerous situation Halford has put himself in, she has to act fast to prevent him confronting his nemesis, resulting in a crash that jeopardises the future of the entire team. With Gerry Standing, Brian Lane and Halford hospitalised, Pullman is forced to accept temporary help at UCOS from the super efficient DCI Karen Hardwick, a woman who irritates Pullman on every level.

Episode 2 – God’s Waiting Room

Sandra Pullman’s private and professional worlds clash when her mother Grace suffers a fall and needs care. Mother and daughter do not share a close relationship, so when Grace temporarily moves in with Sandra, sparks fly. However, the two do agree that Grace can no longer live on her own and they set about finding a suitable nursing home for her. On the surface, Whitemead seems perfect, until one of the residents, Leonard, confides that the death of another elderly resident, his fiancée Maggie Newley, a year previously, was covered up and passed off as suicide.

Episode 3 -Ducking and Diving

When an armoured security van is found at the bottom of a lake, a link is made to Michael Dudley who disappeared 17 years ago. Michael’s disappearance coincided with the murder of Marie Sinclair. With the discovery of the van revealing that it was ransacked whilst underwater, and with Marie’s murder remaining unsolved, the team decides to reopen the case. Andrew Sinclair (Marie’s husband and owner of the security firm and the chief suspect at the time) continues to insist he is entirely innocent, but his story doesn’t quite add up. A visit to the new owner of the security firm, Steve Palmer, doesn’t provide Gerry Standing with records he was hoping to find, but it does result in Palmer making the cash-starved Standing an offer he can’t refuse.

Episode 4 – Nine Lives

A family feud erupts when a rich, lonely old woman, Dorothy Hepple, is found dead in her home, leaving all her money and property to her beloved cats, rather than her nephew Harry, and niece Caroline. Her body remained undiscovered for two weeks and the cause of death was undetermined, but the fact that her cats were deliberately locked in the house with her body, makes Jack Halford suspicious. There appears to have been no love lost between the late Ms Hepple and her neighbour Tim Cuswell, and while her carer Dale seems to have been devoted to her, his motives are questionable.

Episode 5 – Powerhouse

The team reinvestigates the 1950s murder of Frederick Tully, a young wages clerk at Battersea Power Station. Patrick Dunne was hung for Tully’s murder, but his granddaughter, Hannah is waging a campaign to get Dunne posthumously pardoned. The discovery of a suitcase of used fivers in the attic of the former Tully home sheds new light on the case, revealing a possible blackmail plot. And when Sir Edward Chambers, the key witness against Dunne, retracts his evidence, the team has reason to question the original investigation. But with Hannah reluctant to cooperate with the police, it is left to Gerry Standing to charm her mother, June, in order to gain an insight into the case, which Standing takes a little too literally.

Episode 6 – Buried Treasure

When Brian Lane’s dog Scampi digs up a body during his routine walk on the common, the team finds itself in a very unusual situation before the investigation has even begun. With a confession. Janice Small, the widow of a notorious criminal, admits to killing her husband’s lover as soon as she hears news of the discovery of a corpse. Only further investigation reveals that the skeleton is 600 years old, so does the common hide the grim remains of more than one victim?

Episode 7 – Father’s Pride

When a camera and film belonging to a man murdered in 1987, are discovered in the toilets of a Soho pub, the team enters the glamorous but murky world of modelling to reinvestigate the young man’s killing. When the film is tested and processed, the team discovers two images that stand out from the standard christening and wedding shots – a junkie shooting up and shot of a couple kissing. But it is not the images found on the film that raises eyebrows, it is the traces of sperm. Gerry Standing’s daughter Emily joins the team when she turns to Sandra Pullman, rather than her father, to help her fulfil her professional ambition. Apart from feeling snubbed, Standing isn’t convinced that Pullman is the right role model for Emily as he doesn’t want to see his daughter sacrifice her personal life for the job. Meanwhile, Brian Lane starts to unravel emotionally and psychologically. Even by his normally eccentric standards, Lane’s behaviour and fragile state of mind is alarming.

Episode 8 – Big Topped

Pullman’s trust in her team is shattered when she discovers they have hidden an important secret about her past from her. The news that her father, a Detective Inspector, killed himself while under investigation for corruption, throws into doubt everything she believed in. Still reeling from the news, Pullman is asked to reinvestigate another family affair – the death of circus ringmaster, The Great Miraculo aka Bert Dignam, at the request of Christy Berlin who has recently discovered that he was her biological father. But will the investigation at Spingles Circus be enough to distract Pullman from feeling utterly betrayed by her colleagues?

Source : BBC

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