Priorities

Two jobs land at once. Chemicals have been dumped in the river, which puts the public at risk and needs an answer now, and a gang of forgers is within reach, which needs the squad to move fast before the trail goes cold. The task force cannot do both at full strength, and the episode is built on the choice.

It is the kind of dilemma the series handles well because the series is not sentimental about it. But nobody is wrong in this one. The river needs protecting and the forgers need catching, and the officers in the middle have to decide where the harm is worse. The chemicals are the sort of problem that does not wait for a warrant, and the forgers are the sort that vanish the moment you hesitate. Dr Jean Morrow (Gay Hamilton) brings the medical side of the argument into the room, which gives the decision a face. It is a fair dilemma and an uncomfortable one, because either answer leaves somebody unprotected.

Stratford Johns, Frank Windsor and Norman Bowler lead as Barlow, Watt and Hawkins, with Walter Gotell's Cullen keeping the pressure on from above, David Lloyd Meredith's Evans and Terence Rigby's Snow on the ground, and Brian Hall's Drake and Julie Hallam's Forest in support. Radar is along for it.

Elwyn Jones wrote it, Gilchrist Calder directed. The hour keeps both threads moving without cheating either, and the title does the honest work of asking what the squad's priorities should be when the choice is between public health and a conviction. The answer the episode gives is a practical one, which is the right answer for this series. Clean water and a clean collar: some weeks you can only pick one. There are no heroes here, only a shift that has to decide, which is more interesting than heroics.