The original cast – with Amanda Redman leading a dream team of Dennis Waterman, James Bolam and Alun Armstrong – was unbeatable.
Experience and wisdom win the day in this silver-haired police procedural. It follows the work of the Met’s fictional Unsolved Crime & Open Case Squad, where a senior detective oversees the work of three retired officers. Their bodies might be creaking and their methods are old-fashioned but they get results. The original cast – with Amanda Redman leading a dream team of Dennis Waterman, James Bolam and Alun Armstrong – was unbeatable. Warm-hearted, wryly comic and deceptively clever, it ran for 12 series and became one of the BBC’s most reliable ratings-grabbers. And yes, Waterman does sing the theme tune. Read our New Tricks review