Relief

Inspector Jean Darblay takes a week's leave to decorate the house, and the title tells you what kind of episode this is: Relief. No murder, no standoff, no missing child. Just paint, wallpaper and the small satisfactions of putting a room to rights, while the station manages perfectly well without her.

The switch of focus is the point. Darblay at home is a different woman from Darblay at the desk, and the episode enjoys watching her wrestle with dust sheets and emulsion while the police work carries on in the background. Sergeant Joseph Beck holds the fort, Sergeant George Parrish keeps the canteen running, and PC Roland Bentley and PC Ian Shelton do the rounds under Superintendent Lake's steady gaze. Inspector Robins, Sergeant Walters and Sergeant Joel appear around the edges, making sure the machinery does not notice the missing part. Tom Darblay, played by David Hargreaves, provides the domestic grounding and the company.

Ian Kennedy Martin wrote it, Jonathan Alwyn directed. Stephanie Turner is Jean Darblay, with David Ellison as Beck, Noel Collins as Parrish, Mark Drewry as Bentley, Martyn Hesford as Ian Shelton and John Ringham as Superintendent Lake. Andrew Burt plays Inspector Robins, Michael Stainton is Sergeant Walters and Leo Dolan is Sergeant Joel. It went out on 13 December 1980, bringing the first series' sixteen episodes to a close.

There is real charm in a series confident enough to park its heroine with a paintbrush for an hour. The drama is in the contrast: the careful business of home improvement against the endless demands of the job, and the quiet question of whether a woman who runs a police station can ever really switch off. The answer the episode gives is the honest one.

It is a gentle way to close the season, a breath before the credits roll. Some weeks the most daring thing a show can do is let its lead relax.

The papering, one assumes, was a success. The station clearly survived.