All Mod Cons

The week begins with Arthur trying to sell Terry's flat out from under him, which is the kind of opening that tells you exactly whose side of the law you are on. The property theme runs through the whole hour. Arthur buys a consignment of cheap red wine from Clive Stannard, a wine merchant of dodgy habits, and Clive gets robbed of his takings by a masseuse at his hotel. Clive decides Arthur was behind it, sends a heavy after him, and the police, for once, decide the same thing.

But the investigation takes Terry and Arthur somewhere they have never needed to go before: a sex shop, in the hope of finding the real culprits. Meanwhile Toyah Willcox plays Kate, an unscrupulous landlady who is trying to evict a young couple so she can sell their house to a developer. Everyone is trying to move somebody else's property around, and the episode keeps the plates spinning long enough for the pieces to land. The wine, the flat and the house all end up tangled in the same scheme.

Andrew Payne and Leon Griffiths wrote it, Ian Sharp directed. Dennis Waterman and George Cole lead, with Michael Robbins as McQueen, Annette Lynton as Helen and Toyah Willcox as Kate. James Ottaway, Simon Cadell, Michael O'Hagan, Mike Savage and Frances Low support.

There is a satisfying grimness to the way property brings out the worst in everybody. Arthur is not the only one selling what he does not own, and the suspicion, the sex shop and the eviction all belong to the same family of small cruelties. It is a busy episode, but the busy-ness suits the show, which has always done its best work with too many schemes chasing too little honesty. Terry ends the hour with his flat intact and his patience gone, which counts as a win in this line of work.