NEW TRICKS “The Chinese Job.” BBC, 23 March 2003. 90m. Amanda Redman, James Bolam, Alun Armstrong, Dennis Waterman. Guest Cast: Jon Finch, Jill Baker. Created by Roy Mitchell and Nigel McCrery. Screenplay by Roy Mitchell. Director: Graham Theakston.

   â€œThe Chinese Job” was the pilot for this long-running TV program, being shown one year before the series began. It was on for 12 seasons, with most if not all of the original cast having moved on before it finished. I think the basic premise, one that even younger viewers could relate to, is one that suggests that older people need not be put out to pasture, so to speak, even though they’ve retired. And, even more, and simply put, they can learn new tricks.

   It begins at first as mostly a public relations gimmick, but the Unsolved Crime and Open Case Squad (or UCOS for short), a division within London’s Metropolitan Police Service tasked with re-investigating unsolved crimes. Headed by a fully active superintendent slash supervisor, three ex-detectives are brought in, as civilians to begin working on such cases. To wit (copying and pasting liberally from Wikipedia):

Detective Superintendent Sandra Pullman (Amanda Redman) (2003–2013): Sandra is the head of the unit. She was an up-and-coming officer in Greater London’s Metropolitan Police Service until the shooting of a dog during a hostage rescue, which is a running joke during the early series. Her career consequently stalled and she is made to take charge of UCOS, initially against her will.

John ‘Jack’ Halford (Ex-Detective Chief Superintendent) (James Bolam) (2003–2012, 2013): The highest-ranking retired officer on the team, and the first to be approached by Sandra when setting up UCOS, Jack Halford is the unofficial second-in-command. He is Sandra’s mentor on numerous occasions, having been her boss on the murder squad.

Brian Lane (Ex-Detective Inspector) (Alun Armstrong) (2003–2013): Brian ‘Memory’ Lane is an exceptional detective, possessing a keen attention to detail and a remarkable instant recall memory for obscure details regarding cases and officers who investigated them. Brian is socially inept and eccentric, a recovering alcoholic with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.

Gerry Standing (Ex-Detective Sergeant) (Dennis Waterman) (2003–2015): He is nicknamed “Last Man Standing”, because of his refusal to take backhanders (bribes) when his squad were paid off by a gangster. A ‘Jack the lad’, Gerry is an old-school police officer. He was a ‘thief-taker’, who passionately enjoyed catching criminals, but nevertheless mixed easily with them, leading to allegations of corruption. Although he always denied this, he quit before he could be disciplined.

   The case they first get their teeth into is that of a mob boss (Jon Finch) who’s already served twenty years for killing a young girl, but who has now been freed on a technicality. UCOS’s charge: find additional, untainted evidence that he really did do it. The problem: the more they investigate, the more apparent it seems that he did not do it. That he was framed, and worse, by the chief investigator in charge at the time.

   I’m not sure how it happened this way, but I’d already watched seasons three, four and five, before I got back to this one, but in a way, I’m glad I did. It was quite fascinating to see the contrast, but looking backward, not forward. How it was when the squad began, when most of them did not know each other, nor their various strengths and weaknesses, and above all, their foibles – and how to get along together. In all likelihood, the writers for the show did not know exactly where they were going, either, not where they would be two or three seasons yet to come.

   In this the pilot episode, quite a bit of it has to do with how these three retired gents learn what new toys – computers, DNA sampling and the like – they now have at their disposal, while they continue with their old ways of bending rules when they need to to get the results they want – while not really breaking them. All the while Sandra, their nominal boss, finds out very quickly that herding cats is not the easiest job in the world.

   By the time I started watching the series, the Squad was working like a well-oiled machine. Here in the pilot they were still working the kinks out, and I enjoyed watching it happen.