In Hazard

In Hazard begins with a knock at the door and a story Van der Valk does not trust. A beautiful woman brings him a strange tale, too neatly made to be wholly true, and the detective is left with the choice that runs through the hour: follow the hunch or keep to the book and let the case find its own way. He picks, and the consequences are what the episode is about.

The pleasure is in that early tension. A pleasant first meeting curdles into something he did not expect, and his own judgement comes under repeated challenge as the details arrive. The woman's story is the hook, but the doubt it plants is the engine. The mystery is thicker than the surface promised, and the people around him each add a piece. Arlette and Samson are there, and so is Blom, and the supporting cast gives the inquiry several pairs of eyes on the same puzzle.

Barry Foster plays Van der Valk, with Joanna Dunham as Arlette and Nigel Stock as Samson. Michael Petrovitch is Wim and David Wood plays Blom. Jan Harvey is Margit and Jon Croft plays Johannes. Bernard Brown is Henniker. Richard Hurndall is the magistrate and John Scholes plays Dolf Maartens. Paul Wheeler and Nicolas Freeling wrote it; William Brayne directed.

What keeps the hour steady is the balance between the central mystery and the people working it. The case is allowed to breathe, and the relationships around Van der Valk feel worn in rather than staged. That is the series at its most comfortable. William Brayne gives it a suitably grey November mood, which suits a story about a man unsure whom to believe.

And the instinct-versus-rule dilemma is the one Foster plays best. He lets Van der Valk weigh the hunch against the procedure, and the episode finally favours the man over the manual, which is exactly where this detective has always lived.