The Lohans

The final episode of Bergerac, "The Lohans", sends the series out on a proper mystery — a set of stolen Chinese figurines, a missing piece, and one last case for the detective who has spent nine years proving he was always more than the island's tame copper. Rosa Zeenak, an antiques dealer, is selling a collection of sixteen Lohans — figurines of the apostles of Buddha — for nearly two million pounds. Hungerford is her buyer; he has paid a hundred thousand pounds' deposit and hired Bergerac as security. The dealer Alfred Child authenticates the set — and recognises it: the Weiss collection, stolen, with a ten-thousand-pound reward for its recovery. He offers to keep quiet in return for a commission.

Peter Palliser's script, directed by Terry Green, is a classic theft-and-recovery story with the series' usual layering. The Lohans are stolen in the night — a man with a tranquiliser dart puts Bergerac down and takes them — and the trail leads to John Kelp, the collector in Wiltshire who has been fencing them. The missing sixteenth Lohan, Rosa reveals, is the key: a complete collection is worth far more than the parts, and Kelp will not sell until he has the last piece. The series sets up the final game: Bergerac with one Lohan, Kelp with fifteen, and everyone — Rosa, Child, the Bureau, the mainland police — playing their own hand.

The episode is at its best in the cross-Channel pursuit. Bergerac, working alone against Deffand's suspicion, follows the collection to Salisbury and Winchester; Mary Chester, the dealer who knows the Weiss collection's history, is killed for her trouble — a fall, or a push, in the confusion; and the climax at Kelp's estate has Bergerac and Danielle overpowering him together while Rosa flees with the incomplete set. Ben, the loyal sergeant, plants the Lohan as evidence, and the local police arrest Kelp and his man Younger. Bergerac and Danielle catch the ferry home, passing Rosa and the remaining figurines being taken into custody.

Back in Jersey, Deffand is furious at a newspaper report that the Jersey police failed to catch the thieves; Bergerac asks about the reward; and at a party at Hungerford's, Charlie tries to claim a share of it. A friend complains about her husband, and Hungerford says she needs a private detective — but when he turns around, Bergerac has disappeared. It is the perfect last image: the detective gone, the work continuing, the series ending not with a funeral but with a man walking away. A fitting, quietly confident close to nine series of one of British television's most loved detectives.