Hostage

A German diplomat's daughter has been snatched by a Middle Eastern terrorist group, and the clock on her life is already running. Craven and Haggerty take the job with the usual grim speed, and the episode never lets them catch their breath. The Mullers are the sort of family this show usually passes by, and now their world has been reduced to a waiting room. Time works against the detectives from the first frame, and the episode is honest about what that does to a case: every lead has to be chased at a run, every theory tested in double time.

The rescue runs against a hard deadline, and John Kershaw's script does not waste a minute of it. David Wickes directed, and he stages the final stretch with real urgency, building to the explosive conclusion the set-up promises. The unit works on scraps and sightings, and every wrong turn costs time the girl does not have. Around the chase move the usual supporting figures: Pam Sloane, Commander Nicholls, Professor Munro, and a schoolboy whose small part in the story matters more than it looks.

George Sewell is Craven, Patrick Mower is Haggerty, Roger Rowland is North. Ann Lynn is Frau Muller, Michael Gambon is Herr Muller, Karen Stark is Hilda Muller, Sheila Scott Wilkinson is Pam Sloane, Richard Butler is Commander Nicholls, Brian Wilde is Professor Munro and Peter Marshall is the Schoolboy. Gambon, years before Dumbledore, plays Herr Muller with the quiet solidity he brought to everything.

But the episode is a brisk, focused thriller, lighter on moral weight than the series' best work and all the better for it as a piece of pure momentum. Wickes keeps the pace up and the camera moving, and the deadline keeps everyone honest. It is an efficient hour of television, and efficiency is a skill in itself.