Involvement

Doyle meets Ann Holly the way he meets most women in this line of work: at the scene of a shooting. Bodie has just put down a suspected drug smuggler outside her flat to save Doyle's life, and Doyle is the one who comforts her. One thing leads to another, and suddenly the pair are talking about marriage. It is fast, even by the show's standards, but the episode makes the speed feel like part of the danger.

Then the job gets in the way. An informer tells them that a man known as the Christmas Man is flying in a consignment of drugs, and the evidence points squarely at Ann's father, Charles Holly. Watching her father get put under surveillance is bad enough; doing it while planning a wedding is worse. Doyle, enraged, resigns from the operation, and the question hangs over the rest of the hour: has his heart just wrecked a vital case, and is Ann the innocent bystander she appears to be?

Brian Clemens wrote it alone, Chris Burt directed. Patricia Hodge is Ann, and it is a small pleasure watching her hold her own against Doyle's temper. William Russell is Charles Holly, Ray Ashcroft is Turner, Christopher Guard is Tony, Val Pringle is Buzz, Peter Holt is Marli and Peter Godfrey is the Vicar.

The personal stakes are what make it work. Most episodes give the lads a girlfriend to wave at; this one gives Doyle a genuine conflict between the woman he loves and the job he has sworn to. The show keeps the question of Ann's innocence open long enough that you genuinely do not know which way it will go, and Patricia Hodge plays the ambiguity without giving anything away.

It is a reminder that the professional machinery can be derailed by the heart, or just by inconvenient family connections.