On The Third Day

Barlow has the morning planned: an interview with a promotion board, the sort of day a man in his position is supposed to want. But before he gets there, he is told that Timothy Redway, a violent thug with a grudge, has marked him for revenge. Promotions can wait. Staying alive cannot. Being marked is a different order of trouble from being briefed.

The episode follows the squad as they try to keep Barlow safe from a threat that is coming for him personally, and the investigation into Redway's motives runs alongside the protection work. It is a story about the job catching up with a man who has spent a career putting himself where the danger is, and about the officers who have to move around him as the danger closes in. The revenge is the personal kind, the sort that does not fade with time, and it puts Barlow in the unfamiliar position of being the target. The promotion board is left waiting, and the episode never lets us forget it. The protection work is thankless, and the episode gives it full credit. Stratford Johns carries the episode with the weight the role needs, and Walter Gotell's Cullen, David Lloyd Meredith's Evans and Thomas Ellice's Knowles form the ring around him. The senior ranks crowd in too: Richard Vernon's Sir Ralph Townley, John Arnatt's Chief Constable Daniels, Patrick O'Connell's Asst. Chief Constable Morton, Donald Burton's Chief Supt. Anderson, Raymond Miller's Insp. Jones and Michael Lomax's Det. Con. Yardley.

Elwyn Jones wrote it, Gilchrist Calder directed, and it went out on 18 October 1972.

The title hints at resurrection, which is a hope the episode holds out and the viewer holds with it. Whatever happens on the third day, the interview is not the appointment that matters. It is the threat with Barlow's name on it, and the episode gives that threat all the space it needs.