My Name's Sergeant Bergerac

"My Name's Sergeant Bergerac" is the eighth series' lightest hour — a mistaken-identity caper built around the impossible: someone is impersonating Bergerac, badly. The impostor is Shlomo Denkovitz, a small-time private eye hired by a rich widow's lawyer to find Giles Grey, a con man who defrauded her of her money. Denkovitz, forging a warrant card, walks into a Jersey bank claiming to be Sergeant Bergerac, gets the clerk to point him at Grey's account, and promptly draws the attention of the men he is chasing — and of the real Bergerac, who is trying to sleep off a night shift.

Tony Robinson — years before Baldrick made him a household name — plays Denkovitz with a lovely, hapless enthusiasm. He is not a villain; he is a man out of his depth, taking notes, losing papers and being chased by the con man's heavies, Dennis Swain and June Marks, who believe he has their documents. The running joke of the episode is the collision of the fake Bergerac's ineptitude with the real one's reputation: the bank, the car-hire firm and Grey's neighbour all assume the confident man with the warrant card is the famous detective, and the real thing keeps arriving a step behind.

John Milne's script, directed by Michael Brayshaw, keeps the farce light and the stakes real. Denkovitz's uncle, Edward Emanuelson, played with weary patience by Ronald Allen, is paying him; the widow Jean Newman wants to come over and meet him; and the con man Grey — who has been cashing cheques on the island and charming his way into Marie Chenin's house — is the prize everyone is circling. The chase ends on the beach, where Bergerac, Willy and Ben corner the group after Denkovitz is snatched at gunpoint in front of a garden party. Nobody will talk, but the case is cracked anyway.

The episode's quiet theme is reputation. The real Bergerac, whose name carries weight on the island, spends the hour watching a small man borrow it — and the series enjoys the irony that the impostor gets further with it than the owner ever could. It is a competent, charming change of pace after the gravity of the opener, and it shows the eighth series could still do comedy with a professional's touch. A gentle hour, and a reminder that even the most famous detective can be upstaged by a fool with a forged card.