Old Acquaintance

"Old Acquaintance" is the episode in which the seventh series finally commits to its most interesting pairing. Philippa Vale, freshly paroled and supposed to be checking on her horse, is hiding something bigger: a retired Olympic track star, Peter Jason, has refused to testify about drugs in sport at an international hearing in Toronto, his life is threatened, and the Canadians have asked Philippa — of all people — to give him sanctuary. She has been sheltering him at a rented mansion, posing as a journalist, while the corporations whose millions depend on his silence send their men after him. Bergerac, drawn in by the stables and by the simple impossibility of staying away from her, becomes her reluctant ally.

Rod Beacham's script, directed by Richard Standeven, gives Joanna Lumley one of her best Vale stories — the thief as protector, running a safe house with a private army of her own making. The threat is a proper corporate conspiracy: Christine Nash of Selco International, the hired muscle Moxton, the hitman Baker, and a rifle set up in the mansion gardens. Peter's testimony, the episode makes clear, could destroy companies and send directors to jail; the people paying for his silence will kill to keep it.

The episode's emotional work is done in the margins. Susan, who has come to the mansion to berate Philippa for taking up with Jim the moment he was free, is kidnapped by mistake — Baker was supposed to take Philippa — and the siege that follows brings Bergerac through a window, a gun across a floor and a hitman through a glass roof. The deception at the heart of it — the "Peter" at the mansion is actually Winston Julien, a gay novelist writing up his notes, while the real Peter fled to Toronto in a clothes-swap — is the kind of bold, slightly absurd scheme the series loves.

The coda is the point. Peter testifies; Bergerac visits the mansion to retrieve a bullet; and Philippa invites him to stay and check out the bedrooms. The season has been dismantling Bergerac's relationship with Susan — she has broken it off officially, and neither of them wants to say it — and the series is quietly clearing the way for its most charismatic pairing. A stylish, funny, breakneck hour that shows the seventh series knew exactly what it was doing with its best guest star.