Striker

February 1971, and there is no such thing as light duties at the CID. Morse is back in the thick of it, crestfallen after the year he has had, rarely without a scotch in hand, and nobody is going to cut him any slack for it. DS Strange returns from sick leave to find the shop under pressure from two directions at once.

The first is an explosive murder inside an Oxford college, a crime with political ramifications that reach well past the dreaming spires. The second is a threat from the IRA against the life of the Oxford Wanderers' star striker, which leaves Morse in the unenviable position of acting bodyguard to a footballer. He guards the man, the big game comes and goes, and a murder happens anyway. Only it is not the striker who dies; it is another player.

The two threads keep the team stretched between domestic danger and national anxiety, and the episode wears its tension well. Even the football crowd looks nervous, which for 1971 Oxford is saying something.

Russell Lewis wrote it, and Shaun Evans directed it. Roger Allam is DCI Fred Thursday, Shaun Evans is DS Endeavour Morse, Sean Rigby is DS Jim Strange, and Caroline O'Neill is Win Thursday. Julian Moore-Cook plays Jack Swift, Gabriel Tierney is John Paul Martinelli, Mia McCallum is Maggie Widdowson, Angus Yellowlees is John Sarson, Andrew Havill is Professor Lucius Stamfield, and Harriet Thorpe is Miss Newell.

The IRA threat gives the episode its tension and its period weight, 1971 being what it was, and the show handles the material with care. Morse as bodyguard is a pleasing role reversal, the man who hates being watched suddenly stuck watching someone else. The twist that the victim is another player is neatly done, and it keeps the threat feeling alive right to the end.

Academic intrigue and overt political violence, side by side, and a reminder that even local crimes sit on top of larger currents.