Catching Up

A man who was presumed dead after disappearing ten years ago walks into Sergeant Joseph Beck's life, and the department has to cope with the paperwork. Catching Up is one of those premises that sounds like a tall tale and plays out with remarkable restraint.

The returning man is Clive Temple, played by John Forgeham, and his reappearance lands squarely on Beck. The reunion is not a happy one, exactly, and it forces the sergeant, the station and the official records to reckon with a man who has spent a decade living off the grid, legally speaking in a state of advanced ambiguity. The episode is careful with the weight of the situation, letting the shock of the return speak for itself rather than cranking up the drama. Marion Kershaw and Derek Kershaw orbit the return, and Alfred Deacon adds his piece, while Inspector Jean Darblay, Sergeant George Parrish and PC David Gallagher work the edges of the strange new problem.

John Foster wrote it, Ken Hannam directed. Stephanie Turner is Jean Darblay, David Ellison is Sergeant Joseph Beck, Noel Collins is Parrish and Gerard Kelly is Gallagher. John Forgeham plays Clive Temple, Brenda Fricker, eight years before her Oscar for My Left Foot, is Marion Kershaw, Paul Angelis is Derek Kershaw and Ted Beyer is Alfred Deacon. It went out on 28 November 1981, as the second series wound towards its close, and it showed the show's willingness to trust an odd premise and a quiet tone.

The episode's quiet power is in its restraint. Nobody shouts, nobody collapses; people just have to adjust to a fact that refuses to fit the records. The logistics of being officially dead and then officially alive again turn out to be their own kind of nightmare, and the show enjoys untangling them.

It is a compelling setup handled with commendable calm. Ten years is a long time to be a ghost, and Beck, at least, gets to ask why.