Jack Halford hopes a clairvoyant will put him in touch with his late wife. Instead he is contacted by a girl who disappeared twenty years earlier.Jack Halford hopes a clairvoyant will put him in touch with his late wife. Instead he is contacted by a girl who disappeared twenty years earlier.Jack Halford hopes a clairvoyant will put him in touch with his late wife. Instead he is contacted by a girl who disappeared twenty years earlier.
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- Christopher Wells
- (as Christopher Coghill)
- Noisy Workman
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaAll entries contain spoilers
- GoofsDeputy Commissioner Bob Mullan tells the group that Martin Lombard had setup a mobile phone call to his solicitor who recorded the whole conversation whilst the team were trying to pressure him into a confession. The recording included the time when Lombard and Jack Halford were locked inside the shipping container. A mobile phone will not work inside a sealed shipping container as the steel walls will block the radio signals.
- Quotes
Gerry Standing: Listen to this.
[reading a memo]
Gerry Standing: "All the constituents of UCOS over the age of fifty are requested to undergo routine physical and psychological evaluation on the fifteenth of the month to ensure compliance and capability to operate within the parameters of their defining role."
[passes memo to Brian]
Gerry Standing: They're taking the piss!
PC Clark: Not yet, but they certainly will be. Three hundred millilitres minimum.
- ConnectionsReferences Dad's Army (1968)
'Inspector Morse', 'A Touch of Frost', 'Midsomer Murders' (in its prime), 'Law and Order', 'Inspector George Gently', 'Criminal Minds', 'Murder She Wrote', you name them to name a few. 'New Tricks' has also been a favourite from the start (despite not being the same without the original cast in recent years). Although it can be corny at times (in an endearing sort of way) it has always been perfect for helping me relax in the evenings. Something that was needed during all the hard times endured in school.
Season 1 comes to an end with "Talking to the Dead". It is a solid, very good and almost great episode, but is not one of the season's best, "Painting on Loan" and particularly "Good Work Rewarded" fit that distinction more. What brings "Talking to the Dead" down is the rather unsatisfying ending that considering all that happens feels like a cheat.
Can't fault the rest of "Talking to the Dead" though. By this point, 'New Tricks' had fully hit its stride, now fully settled with the familiar mix of humour and serious mystery fully established.
Visually, "Talking to the Dead" looks lovely, with a brighter look but never garish and always slick and stylish, with a touch of grit seen in the pilot and the first episode. The music is a good fit and the theme song (sung with gusto by none other by Dennis Waterman himself) is one of the catchiest for any detective/mystery show and of any show in the past fifteen years or so.
Writing is intelligent, thought-provoking and classy, while also being very funny and high up in the entertainment value.
Story is compelling, with its fair share of surprising twists and skeletons in the closet conflict (especially with the season's most hateable suspect in Lombard), and lively, but never rushed, pacing.
A huge part of 'New Tricks' appeal is the chemistry between the four leads and their performances. The chemistry is so easy going and charming with a little tension.
One of the show's biggest delights is Alun Armstrong, achieves a perfect balance of funny comic timing and touching pathos which was maintained all the way up to his final episode. It is also lovely here to see his role in the team and skills appreciated more all the time. James Bolam's Jack is the quietest, most sensible (mostly) and most composed of the team, with a tragic personal life that Bolam portrays very touchingly without any overwrought-ness.
The only woman on the team, Amanda Redman more than holds her own in what is essentially the boss role of the four. Dennis Waterman is fun and is adding more and more all the time to the crime solving, even if some of his methods throughout the show are not one calls by the book.
Robert Bathurst enjoys himself as Lombard and it is sad saying goodbye to Nicholas Day (even if one doesn't miss his character) and Chiké Okonkwo. Robert Calf's Strickland was a more than worthy replacement though and it shows in that he is one of the show's longest-serving cast members.
Overall, very good but the ending frustrates. 8/10 Bethany Cox
- TheLittleSongbird
- Jan 8, 2018