Daydreamer

Stafford's second outing is no calmer than his first. The charge this time is that he has been too soft over the weeding of Special Branch files, and the accusation lands with the force's usual delicacy: muttering in the corridors and a good deal of watching to see how he answers it.

None of it comes from nowhere. He took the job as an outsider and parts of the force have never quite forgiven him for it. The weeding row gives his opponents something to hold up at meetings, and it does not matter much whether the charge is fair. It only matters that it sticks. The episode knows how dull all that sounds, and it makes the dullness the point: this is how careers get quietly picked apart, one file at a time.

The episode is really about the cost of the top job. Stafford spends the hour defending decisions he probably thought were settled, and there is something quietly exhausting about watching a man argue with his own service. His authority is being tested from every direction, and each test looks small on its own, which is how they add up. He is answerable to the Home Office and to a force that never quite chose him.

Jeffrey Caine wrote it, Brian Farnham directed. The supporting cast leans in nicely, with Colin McCormack's ACC Peter Leech and Karen Archer's Anne Stewart keeping the professional side honest while Julian Holloway's Sir Ian Harnett MP hovers with the political weight. Stephen Tate's Det. Supt. Brian Kale, Eamon Boland's Det. Chief Supt. Jim Gray and Ross Kemp's PC Dennis Scovell all get their moments, and Isobel Reid's WPC Fitton and Henry Croft III's Inspector Stanton round out the station floor, with Erin Geraghty's Fiona in the background of it all.

But Stafford keeps his temper, which is more than most of us would manage in a job that seems partly designed to annoy him. The title is the quiet joke. Daydreams, presumably, are cheaper than resignations.