There's lots to like about New Tricks.
Good premise: Ex-cops pulled back in to solve cold cases.
Excellent cast, including my favorite Dennis Waterman.
Top-notch production values, with contemporary colour saturation and sound design.
This week's episode. Bunch of hippies are protesting something. One of them was murdered. Pinch-face in charge figures it was Special Braches. She even gets a lunch date out of it.
Blah, blah, blah. Lots and lots of talking of the kind perfected by dreary police procedurals such as Law & Order. Explain the plot. Talk about people off screen as if we're supposed to remember who's who based on some mugshots posted on the office wall. Very tedious.
But we stick with it because we want to know whether MI5 wacked a protestor.
Pearce Quigley as the criminally insane former protestor steals the episode with his paranoid act. Compelling actor.
Nicolas Day only gets a walk-through and one line. What a waste. The guy stole his two seasons on Minder. He deserved better here. They could have made him the antagonist, so to speak. And softened up Ms Pinch Face just a bit. She's hard to take, frankly.
I'd say the best part of New Tricks so far is the rapport among the crew, despite Ms Pinch Face.