The International Space Police Force return in a trilogy of stories that see a new threat start to manifest, Nathan face some old ghosts and the team catch a locked room mystery and a shuttle crash with a very odd number of casualties…

One of the many things I love about Star Cops is how the premise is basically in the title and this set wastes no time in getting to work. ‘Dead Air’ by Roland Moore brings the characters back to the Moon with a uniquely space-based mystery; a possible death by space suit. While Nathan struggles with being the (temporary but I have my suspicions) commander of Moonbase, Paul and Devis investigate a rickety old space station that’s connected to the case.

This is a locked room mystery with a hint of Monk to it and it starts the set on a deceptively whimsical note. Helen Goldwyn gets great performances throughout and the main cast are top notch as always and this set has some really good guest stars. Many of them do double duty and Becky Wright does just that, registering very well here in a major role as Sonia the murder victim whose shadow falls across the entire story. Tonally, this one feels a little awkward towards the end but it’s a minor quibble, nothing more. The cast and the interplay between arc and individual story are absolutely worth it.

‘Hostile Takeover’ by Rossa McPhillips opens at a gallop and never slows down. A shuttle that won’t answer hails is shot out of the way of a salvage station and crashes on the Moon. There’s no one aboard, but Investigator Alice Okoro (Lynsey Murrell) seems pretty interested in keep things quiet. Meanwhile, Kenzie is working a missing persons case on the station that had the near miss and which is also in the middle of a labour dispute. Oh and there’s the small matter of a dead crime boss too.

McPhillips’ script asks a lot and delivers it all. The seemingly disparate cases are woven together neatly, not just with this episode but the one before it and the ending is especially nicely handled. This season is doing an excellent job, and this episode does this in microcosm, of slowly revealing a massive threat that’s extruding into the characters’ lives in multiple places. Goldwyn’s direction, impressive throughout this set, sings here too. The main cast are, as always, great but the standouts her are the guest stars. Murrell’s snippy ex-Forces investigator is a perfect foil for Devis’ zen plod and Graham Vick does great work as two entirely different characters, neither of whom end well. Even the potential bum note of the corporation being the good guys in the labour dispute is neatly stepped around. Plus, actual laser fight, what’s not to love?

That willingness to go big and go weird reaches its zenith with ‘Death in the Desert’ by Sarah Grochala. Again, Goldwyn does great work here and there’s a pleasingly rounded, lived-in sense to the performances from a surprisingly big cast. Murrell returns as Alice Okoro and is joined by Jason Nwoga pulling double duty as Professor Sani Habib and Sergeant Hamza and Sarah Lawrie as Kay Jones. All of them feel, again, like people whose stories intersect with this one and all of them give excellent, grounded performances. Murrell’s Okoro is especially good; an investigator just like the leads but one with a very different set of priorities. David Calder too gets some excellent work here as Nathan’s past re-surfaces. Also there is A Thing done here which made me legitimately gasp and I’m really curious to see how it’s followed up on.

Grochala’s script folds an extended workplace comedy (Devis is in charge! And surprisingly good at it!) into another multi-location case and one that works even better than its predecessor. A strange new narcotic on Moonbase is challenge enough, but Nathan being called back to Earth to find the sister of his partner, Lee Jones, is even harder. Lawrie is great here, and the call back to the first episodes of the original TV show is cleverly handled. This script, and set, establish the new status quo and use the old status quo to do it. They build on the past and do so very, very well.

Verdict: Complex, ambitious, optimistic and pragmatic, this is a great police procedural and a better science fiction police procedural. Also a surprisingly great jumping on point for the series. 8/10

Alasdair Stuart

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