Cold Fusion (1)

Cold Fusion (1) goes back to Spencer Jordan's past. A case from his Atomic Energy Constabulary days comes up for review: two anti-nuclear campaigners murdered in the 1980s, a man convicted twenty years ago. New DNA evidence, testable at last, says the convicted man is innocent. And someone inside the team seems to be working flat out to destroy that evidence, with every sign pointing at Spencer himself.

Then it gets stranger. A package addressed to Spencer turns out to be a gas bomb. It misses him and knocks out Dr Felix Gibson instead, and the anti-terrorist squad responds by locking down the Cold Case HQ entirely, quarantining everyone until they identify whatever felled her. Spencer gets out long enough to go after the man whose DNA turned up at the murder scene, but he is shot at and loses contact with Boyd. From inside the sealed base, Boyd works out the uncomfortable truth: his investigation is being quietly strangled by a powerful insider who has just stripped his team of its freedom. Getting out to save Spencer becomes the whole job.

Barbara Machin and Ed Whitmore wrote it, Richard Standeven directed. Trevor Eve is Boyd, Sue Johnston plays Grace Foley, Wil Johnson is Spencer, Esther Hall is Felix and Félicité Du Jeu is Stella Goodman, joined by Mark Lewis Jones as Tom McQueen, David Calder as Commander Bill Drake, Patricia Kerrigan as Penny Coulter, Mark Letheren as Toby Holmes and Dominic Rickhards as Marcus Coulter.

Part one runs on institutional paranoia rather than a body count, which suits this show. The state built the bomb, the state ran the constabulary, and now the state's own paperwork is trying to bury the truth.

Spencer in genuine peril gives it teeth. The episode ends with his life hanging on whether Boyd can beat the quarantine.