Vigil

The whole episode hangs on an arrival: a new WPC walks into Seven Dials, and everything shifts. Ruth Whittaker is the newcomer, and the story is less about a case than about what her arrival does to the room. The established team, Russell, Fenton, Croft, Barratt, have their rhythms, and a fresh face cuts through them.

It's an episode that observes more than it reveals. The focus stays on how the newcomer settles in, who helps her and who watches, and what the station looks like from the outside looking in. Maggie takes the measure of her the way she takes the measure of a new witness, which is to say without appearing to look at all. Around the edges move Jonathan Horton, Annette, Kevin Lever and Micky Scott, giving the hour its texture. Lynne Ross plays Ruth with the right mix of wariness and nerve, and the writing is smart enough to make the audience wonder, along with the rest of the squad, exactly what she's made of. It's a gentle hour in the best sense: the drama is in glances and silences, not gunfire.

Tony Parker and Terence Feely wrote it, Peter Cregeen directed. Jill Gascoine is Maggie Forbes, William Marlowe plays Russell, Derek Thompson is Fenton, Brian Gwaspari plays Croft and Paul Moriarty is Barratt. Peter Copley plays Jonathan Horton, Dilys Laye is Annette, Lynne Ross plays WPC Ruth Whittaker, David Ashford is Kevin Lever and Desmond McNamara plays Micky Scott.

An episode without a body is a risk in a crime series, but this one earns its keep by being about something most procedurals skip: what it costs to be the new person, and how slowly the people already there come round to trusting her. And it ends the way such stories usually do, with everyone still deciding. Sometimes the quietest episodes say the most about a place, and this one says plenty about Seven Dials.