Nuclear

A large demonstration turns up outside a nuclear plant, and Cade is not there to see it. He is away investigating a member of his own force, so the episode runs two emergencies side by side: a high-profile disturbance at national infrastructure, and an internal inquiry that nobody wants to talk about. Authority gets stretched across two fronts at once, with the public watching both and the officers on the ground caught between them.

The structure gives the series a chance to get out of the station. The demonstration brings crowds and noise, with the threat of a real escalation underneath, while the inquiry stays quiet and bitter behind closed doors. The two strands feed each other: trouble outside makes the force look weak, and the smell of an internal investigation makes it look dirty. Cade's team has to hold the line in both places, and the script is fair to how much that asks of ordinary officers.

Martin Shaw is Chief Constable Alan Cade, with Julian Glover as Andrew Blake and Bosco Hogan as Deputy Chief Constable Wes Morton. Gillian Bevan plays Det. Supt. Rose Penfold and Michael Cochrane is Nigel Crimmond. Brian Bovell is PC Charlie Webb, Patricia Kerrigan is Claire Gibson, Matthew Owens is Joe Gibson, Prentis Hancock is Ronald Furlong and Ian Redford is Supt. Eric Forman. Jeffrey Caine and Steve Griffiths wrote it, and Tom Cotter directed.

But the episode is best when it remembers that the man at the top cannot be everywhere. Cade's absence from the plant is the point, not a plot convenience: leadership gets tested exactly where the leader is not. The episode never lets the two storylines collapse into one, which takes more discipline than it looks. Solid, watchable stuff, and a reminder that the force's hardest battles are often the ones fought on two fronts at once.