Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10
Cast: Denis Lawson, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Tamzin Outhwaite, Larry Lamb, Jack Deam, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Derek Riddell, Amanda Root, Adie Allen, Henry Garrett, Glen Wallace, Lucy Thackeray.
Money has a habit of making the previously virtuous become greedy, almost ready to become a monster tied to the pursuit of its lure and the filth that can come with it arriving out of the blue and too much, too soon. If money makes the world go round then it’s surprising at times that any Bank worth its lecherous salt hasn’t dibbed ownership on the speed and velocity and tried to see it off in a hedge fund.
The lottery of life goes hand in hand with money, some seek it to improve the standards of their family, some to waste in whatever way they deem fit, whichever way it goes, eventually it will and the taste for more will always tantalisingly, and with perhaps rancid persuasion, stay close to the heart and the wallet.
For the U.C.O.S. team, the Lottery Curse is one that comes home to roost when the body of a former Lottery winner is found in the grounds of the house she lived, presumed missing and living abroad for years, the British press round upon her former partner and once more scented blood.
New Tricks has never been shy about placing pre-conceptions into the hearts and minds of both its retired policemen, nor for dangling the carrot of first impression into the ceramic base of the viewer’s detective bowl, it is a formula that has worked over the many series and one that will be much missed when the long running B.B.C. drama finally comes to a premature end.
By placing the partner in the line of fire from the initial conversations and the hounding on the door step by the press who smell premature blood in the nostrils and the chance of vindicating their earlier front pages of nearly two decades before, the writers of New Tricks are able to show just how easy it is make anyone believe what they want as long as it shouted enough times and with the full weight of suspicion and supposition behind them. It is enough at times to despair about how much money is lauded over and yet when you throw a scandal, or Britain’s favourite past time of armchair murder into the social mix, then money takes on a new and bitter twist, greed becomes all.
As the team’s adventures come to an end, it is worth remembering that money in the end seems to dictate everything in life, even choice, New Tricks is one of the great series that seems to be allowed to go beyond the shrouded veil of television history and with no choice other than because of the pursuit of money.
Ian D. Hall