Teamwork

The team at Hartley police station have been waiting for a new inspector, and there is a telling note in the way they talk about it: having lost Inspector Darblay, it would be good to have a man back in charge. What they get instead is Kate Longton, and Teamwork spends its first day watching everybody adjust.

Longton's arrival could hardly be worse timed. Three men are committing racially motivated attacks around the area, and somebody is leaving a great deal of graffiti that does not fit the usual profile of wayward youths. The new inspector walks into both problems on day one, with Sergeant Joseph Beck, Sergeant George Parrish, PC Danny Sparks and PC Brian Kelleher working the ground and Detective Sergeant Bernie Duckworth running the detail. Mr. Cotley, John Holden, Derek Collis and David Greig each hold a piece of the picture, and the pattern of violence and vandalism has the whole station stretched.

Ian Kennedy Martin wrote it, Peter Cregeen directed. Anna Carteret plays Inspector Kate Longton with the crisp authority the role needs, and the familiar ranks around her, David Ellison, Noel Collins, Mark Botham, C.J. Allen and Lloyd McGuire, give the new order some continuity. Tom Georgeson is John Holden, Nat Jackley is Mr. Cotley, Tommy Boyle is Derek Collis and John Branwell is David Greig.

The episode knows exactly what it is doing, giving the new inspector a crisis that tests her judgment and a station that is not yet sure it wants her. The racial attacks are handled with the show's usual seriousness, and the graffiti thread adds a proper mystery to the mix.

It is a strong start for the Longton era. The station wanted a man; it got a woman who outworks all of them, and the audience is the winner.