We’re jumping in to New Tricks with Denis Lawson’s first episode, part-way through the ninth season. If you’d like a little bit of background about the show and the characters who we’ll meet, I’ve written up some introductions, but honestly—you could start here, and be fine. It’s a solid procedural, with excellent characters, great writing and some fab directing—for most of its run, it was a BBC flagship show and that shows in the production quality. This is a great introductory episode, where Steve McAndrew joins the team to investigate a case he failed to solve nine years ago: the disappearance of Georgia Wright.
About
The fourth episode of series nine of New Tricks (the first one containing Denis Lawson and therefore, the first relevant to this blog), ‘The Girl Who Lived’ aired 17th September 2012 on BBC One. The series was created by Roy Mitchell and Nigel McCrery and this episode was written by Roy Mitchell and directed by Matthew Evans.
It stars Denis Lawson as ‘Steve McAndrew’, Alun Armstrong as ‘Brian Lane’, Amanda Redman as ‘Sandra Pullman’ and Dennis Waterman as ‘Gerry Standing’. Guest starring this episode are Anthony Calf as ‘Robert Strickland’, Sean McGinley as ‘Ken Wright’, Daniel Ryan as ‘Barry Flint’ and Michelle Duncan as ‘Georgia Wright’. Readers will remember Sean McGinley for playing a grieving father in slightly different circumstances in The Ambassador: Cluster of Betrayals.
Availability: Available for purchase in the UK on DVD and digitally. Episodes also occasionally pop up on iPlayer, and television reruns are common—be aware that broadcast reruns are often cut down to fit in the hour timeslot with advertisements. Also available on DVD and digitally in the US.
The Girl Who Lived
The Unsolved Crime and Open Case Squad (hereafter known as UCOS) arrive at the station, having been called in early by DAC Robert Strickland, their boss. Gerry and Brian both wonder whether it’s because he’s found a new team member to replace Jack, who left at the beginning of the series. In fact, it’s about a cold case they’ve received from Strathclyde CID. Following a forensic investigation of a robbery at the London petrol station, they’ve found blood belonging to a woman previously missing, presumed dead.
That woman was Georgia Wright and she went missing nine years, two weeks and two days ago, as the Scottish detective previously assigned to the case informs us. This is how the team meet Steve McAndrew, who is particularly intense.
“This is one of the best days of my life. Pure dead brilliant!”
The CCTV from the petrol station is enough to identify the car used and thereby, capture the suspects. But when they bring the woman in for interview, it’s clear she isn’t Georgia. Meanwhile, Ken Wright, Georgia’s dad has arrived from Scotland, optimistic that he might finally be reunited with his daughter. Whilst Steve agrees, Sandra is more cautious; they’ve only got DNA to go on so far.
The next morning, Steve joins Brian in searching through the rest of the CCTV from the petrol station. On it, they identify Georgia; she’s the cleaner who was in before the robbery. The petrol station has records for her, but she gave them a fake name and a fake address. Steve and Gerry pass on the news to Ken, who wonders why she never got in touch, if she was alive. They all know there must be more to it.
Ken uncovers something. He’s been speaking to the mother of Georgia’s old boyfriend, and it turns out that all wasn’t quite rosy in the days leading up to Georgia’s disappearence. They’d had a fight that had been broken up by a DJ who’d comforted Georgia. Steve and Gerry manage to track the DJ down to a London pub, who finally recalls the incident and says his roadey, Dave, was the one who actually swept Georgia off her feet. He gives them a phone number, which is inactive, but was registered to a name and address. The address though, is registered to a different name: Shane Morrison.
Sandra and Gerry go to the address, but they find no one home. Sandra talks to another man who lives in the same building, who gives them nothing of substance either. Brian and Steve try and track him down, but there’s little evidence anyone by those names exists. They do, however, find a youtube video from a young woman, warning other women about Shane Morrison.
Sandra goes to talk to the young woman in question. She tells an incredible tale, of how Shane told her he was an MI6 agent who’s cover had been blown and convinced her to go on the run with him. Eventually, she realised the entire thing was a lie and managed to leave—but not before he violently assaulted her. She shows Sandra a picture and Sandra realises it’s the same man she met at the flats.
They return to the flat to find it completely cleaned out, all surfaces wiped clean and the place thoroughly gone over with bleach. But the dishwasher hasn’t been turned on. From it, they manage to lift a set of prints and get the true identity of the man who took Georgia: Barry Flint. Records on him are also scant, but they manage to find another address through his medical records. This time, they go for a far more low-key approach, with Steve going in as a postman. Barry isn’t at the flat, but another woman is—and a small child.
UCOS bring the woman in for questioning, but she tells them nothing; she’s convinced everything Barry has told her is true. Steve watches, immensely frustrated, before coming up with his own solution—pickpocketing her phone and finding a current phone number for Barry. They track Barry down with a surveillance van, and bring him in—but he says it’s too late. Georgia has left of her own volition and they will never find her. He seems very unconcerned about being apprehended.
Sandra and Brian take charge of interrogating him, while Steve and Gerry try to look for additional evidence so they can actually charge him with something. Steve realises Barry has a car, so they go to find it. They eventually track it down to a multi-storey car park. They enter, searching the glove box, and then realise there’s a far greater prize; Georgia herself is hiding in the boot.
“Georgia. My name’s Steve McAndrew and I’ve been looking for you for nine years.”
Georgia is terrified, but Steve manages to ease her out the car and back to the station to reunite her with her father. They take her to watch Barry being interviewed and after some shrewd questioning by Sandra, Barry admits to his lies, and Georgia realises how much she’s been manipulated. She tells them about everything that happened and gives the team enough to charge Barry.
Ken and Georgia leave to head back to Scotland. Steve looks set to join them until Sandra asks him how long he’s been retired. One conspiratorial look with Strickland later and well, the UCOS team may have a new member after all.
Verdict
Steve McAndrew arrives in the lives of the UCOS team like a whirlwind. His behaviour here is manic—and you can attribute that to his excitement about finally solving this case, or you can attribute it to him actually having a manic episode. (It’s heavily hinted in later series that Steve suffers from bipolar disorder, and his behaviour here would certainly back it up.) He’s been retired for five years, but it’s clear from all the evidence he immediately has on hand about Georgia that he’s never quite managed to really leave the force behind him.
Although he might be a bit much, and rub some people the wrong way—it’s clear that he cares enormously. This cause has haunted him, personally, because he feels he should have been able to solve it. His close friendship with Ken and the kindness he has for Georgia show that. Unfortunately, this also makes him a bit single-minded in pursuit of answers.
His methods aren’t entirely always entirely above board. He takes a bit of an ends-justify-the-means approach—such as the stunt he pulls in order to track down Barry finally, manipulating a police officer, a small child, and interrupting an interview to lift a phone—and thinks little of it. Sandra isn’t impressed, and they’ll continue to clash on methodology for a little while as Steve adjusts to how things are done in the Met these days.
We learn a few things about Steve’s personal life. We know he has a girlfriend back in Glasgow—Charlene—who is clearly lovely, from Gerry’s reaction when Steve shows her the picture. We know he has a son, as he swears that he’ll keep Georgia safe on his son’s life. Otherwise, it seems he very much lives for his work; he’s able to drop everything to come to London to investigate the case, and even move there with relative ease when offered a job.
The team is slow to come around on Steve. Understandable, considering how for the past nine years of UCOS, it’s been the same team. After enduring a single day of him, Sandra just wants to get the case over with to be shot of him. But throughout the case he proves himself to be a very effective detective who’d be an excellent addition to the team.
Steve’s relationship with Gerry gets off to a right start this episode. The pair of them end up in a pub, with Steve attempting to teach Gerry how to appreciate whiskey properly. This goes well and they both end up hammered in short order. It’s definitely the start of a beautiful friendship—helped along by the fact that Lawson and Waterman became fast friends on set—and a precursor to many shenanigans and cases solved by a trip to the pub. Here though, they stick to personal matters in that evening.
All in all, this is a great episode. It has to succeed in a very difficult task; introducing a new regular character in the first significant cast change for nine series of a show, and does it well. (Though, considering that new character is my favourite, I might be biased.) The case is solid, and it serves as a good jumping-on point for the series, with just enough about the other characters in their introductions to Steve to introduce them to the audience as well.
Next time
Steve has his first case as a fully fledged UCOS officer, and Gerry and Brian try to figure out how they feel about the new chap on the team. Meanwhile, Sandra attempts to keep her team on track as they investigate the odd circumstances surrounding the death of a Metropolitan Police employee. All that and more next time on New Tricks: Body of Evidence.