The Dangerous Game

Pete Johnson is a market trader who deals in stolen and cut-price goods. He fits a plug to his son Mike's joint Christmas and birthday present and lets the boy open it early. Switched on, the toy, a racing game called Lunar Race 2000, sends its moon buggy down the track, a fault sets the car alight, and Mike is badly burned and takes an injury to one eye. Eddie is at the hospital helping Erica deliver Christmas presents when Mike's doctor asks him to talk to the boy. Pete has told the staff Mike was hurt switching on the television, but under sedation the boy has talked about the present. Mike eventually admits he was not supposed to tell anyone the truth.

Eddie goes to Pete's house and is told to make himself scarce. A Welshman called Taff sold Pete the batch. At a toy shop Eddie learns the manufacturer is the Wings toy company, and Mr Wing denies that any Lunar Race 2000 exists. Don Satchley broadcasts warnings about the game, and the company's lawyer is at the station within hours; the warnings stop under legal pressure. Pete throws his own set into the river and finds another one for Eddie. There is a demonstration of what the toy does in front of Don and Sonia, after which Eddie goes back to confront Mr Wing and Don restarts the broadcast warnings.

Mr Wing takes Eddie to a warehouse full of the toys and says the product was never put on the market, having been withdrawn when it was found to be a safety risk. It had been stocked using casual labour, and Eddie finds an empty box which held the ten games that went missing. All but one are found, handed in by parents and by a corner shop owner. A Salvation Army musician says the Welshman works at a cafe, and Eddie arrives as it closes to find Taff gone. A call then says Taff has been admitted to hospital after a fall. Waiting for him to wake, Eddie falls asleep; when the Welshman comes round he says he sold the last game to the cafe owners.

Eddie reaches the cafe and cannot wake anyone. He breaks a kitchen window and finds a note from the owners' children, telling Father Christmas where the family has gone. It is the early hours of Christmas morning and the children are up unwrapping presents. As they fit a plug and reach to switch the game on, there is a power cut, because the meter needs coins. Eddie bursts in and tears the plug out of the wall. Back in the city he sits down on Erica's sofa with a bottle of champagne and falls asleep. The bottle tips over and empties onto the floor. That is the last shot of the series.

The plotting is the tightest of the season, with a single object carrying the whole hour, and the episode is unusual for having no villain: Pete Johnson, Mr Wing and even Taff appear to be obstructing Eddie and all three end up helping him. The best scene is the hospital bedside, where Eddie has to get a badly burned child to admit his father told him to lie, and the way through is patience. Michael Elphick plays Pete as a trader who has hurt his son by his business and cannot say so to a hospital.

The theme is responsibility. Nobody is prosecuted. The toy was withdrawn as unsafe but never recalled, the company's lawyer uses the threat of legal action to stop a radio station warning the public, and the only person who can stop the last game being switched on is Eddie. Against that, it is the least representative episode of the series, getting its ending by coincidence twice. It is also the last thing the programme made and was not written as a finale: no regular character leaves and nothing is said about Eddie's future. The show simply stopped, its lead asleep on a sofa with a bottle emptying onto the floor. It drew 14.8 million viewers, the highest of the second series, and is widely recommended as the episode to start with.