For Whom the Bell Tolls

By the end of the first series, Stafford's running fight with the Home Office has stopped being background noise and become the story. The crisis is personal now. His career is on the line, and the episode does not pretend otherwise. Stafford has spent the series fighting the machine that employs him, and this is where the fight stops being metaphorical.

There is a case ticking through the hour as well. But the real weight falls on the man at the top. When the department that employs you is working against you, every decision gets looked at twice, and Stafford spends the episode making the sort of choices that can end a career whichever way they go. The familiar faces of the county network close in around him. There is no cavalry coming, and the hour does not pretend there might be. His allies grow quieter as the hour goes on, which is how it usually works.

James Fielding and Jeffrey Caine wrote it, Brian Farnham directed. Tim Pigott-Smith gives the episode its centre as a man running out of room, with Karen Archer's Anne Stewart and Simon Cook's Chief Insp. Ian Maidment holding the force end together. David Ryall's Charlie Summers, Dudley Sutton's Martin Scobie and Trevor Byfield's George Hedger give the story its working texture, while Jeremy Clyde's Sir Anthony Maylor and Michael Cochrane's Nigel Crimmond carry the political side. Sara Griffiths' Emma Stafford brings the family cost home, and Eamon Boland's Jim Gray is there, as ever.

The series ends with its chief constable cornered, and that is a brave note to strike. It suggests that the force, like the man, is not above the damage. The bell tolls for the institution as much as for him, and the next season has to start by picking up the pieces. It is a grim way to close a run, but an honest one.