Foxtrot Oscar

The title is military slang for "fuck off," which tells you most of what you need about Tony Clark's mood. The series returns with him outside the Met, having officially got away with murder at a professional cost that stripped him of his career. Now he's an ex-copper with no prospects, looking in from the outside, and the show makes him sit in that discomfort for a while.

Then Deakin pays him a visit. The old enemy turns up with an offer: travel to Tunisia, help a tabloid newspaper substantiate a story about an MP's private life. It's private work, murky by definition, and it pulls Clark back into the orbit of high-stakes secrets without a badge to protect him.

J. C. Wilsher and Rob Heyland wrote it, Alan Dossor directed, and the new arrangement suits the show. The regulars are still around, Tom Georgeson's Naylor and Siobhan Redmond's Connell keeping the police end alive, and Robin McCallum's Graves is there to remind Clark what he gave up. Richard McCabe's Philip Skinner and Jim Barclay's Chief Supt. Taylor fill out the new world of contacts and rivals. Tunisia is a long way from the streets the show started on, and the distance is the point; Clark is a man operating without the weight of the badge, for better and worse. The tabloid element adds a sour comic edge, a great detective reduced to checking a politician's private life for a fee.

It's a season opener about a man learning to be a civilian, and the lesson is that the game doesn't stop when you leave the table. Deakin's offer is a way back in, and Clark takes it knowing exactly what he's doing. The badge is gone, but the intrigue isn't, and the show settles into its new arrangement with surprising ease.