Part of a Whole (22 Oct. 2012)

Folllowing an attempt to kill Stephen Fisher Strickland summons the team to a secret meeting. He tells them that thirty years earlier he and Fisher were part of an intelligence group ... See full summary »

Director:

Julian Simpson

Writers:

Julian Simpson, Roy Mitchell (creator),

Stars:

Alun Armstrong, Amanda Redman, Dennis Waterman

Cast

Episode cast overview:
Alun Armstrong	...	Brian Lane
Amanda Redman	...	Det.Supt.Sandra Pullman
Dennis Waterman	...	Gerry Standing
Denis Lawson	...	Steve McAndrew
Anthony Calf	...	DAC Robert Strickland
Tim McInnerny	...	Stephen Fisher
Jana Carpenter	...	Ruth Bisley
Michael Smiley	...	Tinker
David Sibley	...	Nigel Baxter
Gabrielle Glaister	...	Sarah Maitland
Christopher Villiers	...	Christopher Maitland
Lonyo Engele	...	Fisk
Max Beesley Sr.	...	Carl Dillon
Kerry Fox	...	Jane Ross
Crispin Redman	...	Hitch

Storyline

Folllowing an attempt to kill Stephen Fisher Strickland summons the team to a secret meeting. He tells them that thirty years earlier he and Fisher were part of an intelligence group investigating the IRA but their source journalist Simon Bisley was killed in a hit-and-run and the investigation ended. Now others of the group are being murdered. Bisley had linked the IRA to a career criminal Carl Dillon who,according to Gerry's informant Tinker,has just recruited two assassins and a telling document which could incriminate Dillon was stolen from Bisley's office. However Brian believes that a rogue member of the former secret service team has a vested interest in stealing the document and silencing their colleagues over it,giving Strickland the means to go after them though the team is dissatisfied with the result.

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Genres:

Comedy | Crime | Drama | Mystery

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Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

22 October 2012 (UK)

Filming Locations:

Kenilworth Court, Lower Richmond Road, Putney, London, England, UK

Company Credits

Production Co:

Wall to Wall, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Technical Specs

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Quotes

Det.Supt.Sandra Pullman: Does the name Carl Dillon...
Nigel Baxter: No!
Det.Supt.Sandra Pullman: mean anything to you?

User Reviews

Who is to blame; gangsters, the IRA or MI-5?

The team are rather surprised when DAC Strickland arranges to meet them in a car park and arrives in a taxi… it turns out somebody is clearing up loose ends from a case thirty years ago and Strickland is one of those loose ends. He and a small group he was at Sandhurst with had broken into the house of a journalist at the behest of MI-5; soon afterwards the journalist was killed in a hit and run accident. At the time the journalist had been investigating ties between a London gangster and the IRA. Two members of the team are dead already and Strickland and his friend Stephen Fisher believe they might be next on the hit list. It turns out that a document that they photographed that night had gone missing from the journalist's study; clearly whatever it contained was worth killing for and somebody feared that those involved in the break in might work out its significance… Strickland, Fisher and the UCOS team will have to find out what was on that document if they are to learn why the group is being targeted thirty years after the initial break in.

This was a much more convoluted episode than usual; that wasn't a surprise though as anything involving Ireland in the bad old days and the security services is bound to be fairly murky… especially when you have Tim McInnerny putting in his excellent trademark performance as a slightly sinister Whitehall type; it is hard to believe that he was once Blackadder's idiotic sidekick Percy! Anthony Calf also but in a good performance as Strickland; getting far more screen time than his character usually gets. There was more action than usual with shootings, explosions and even a hit man getting rundown. Just because it was more complex than usual doesn't mean there weren't any laughs; McAndrew's method of overhearing a conversation was both amusing and inventive.