Five years since the end of the Civil War, Britain is ruled peacefully enough under Prime Minister Aziz. Alfie has an expanded security firm with Daveboy and Bet, and Martha and Thomas are happily married with a young daughter. But can this apparent idyll last?

All change in season 3 of Pennyworth and not just because of the somewhat unwieldy new subtitle to the show. With five years having passed, things have altered remarkably in many ways, while staying just the same in many others. Alfie now runs an expanded security enterprise which basically boils down to a slightly classier version of what he did before. When he’s retained to investigate the disappearance of a young girl from a wealthy family by her nanny, he can’t even guess at the trouble he’s about to be involved in.

Martha and Thomas are married, and have an apparently perfect life with their young daughter Samantha, taken care of in the daytime by Mrs Pennyworth while they go to their respective jobs. Thomas is back practising medicine and content with a peaceful life. Martha is… not quite the desk jockey she’s convinced her husband she is. When Thomas’ father turns up to visit, ostensibly to ‘see his granddaughter’, it quickly emerges that other motives are at play and suddenly it’s not just run-of-the-mill father/son tension that risks blowing up the Waynes’ domestic bliss.

Bet, working for Alfred and significantly more respectable than she used to be (in theory), is still pursuing her own little side obsession, seeking to run John Salt to ground and end him once and for all. Having convinced herself that she’s spotted one of his loyal lieutenants, she somewhat ‘goes off grid’ with Alfie and Daveboy unable to reach her, and gets herself into every bit as much trouble as she was always in. Bet has always been one of the standout characters of the show, and it’s nice to see that while she may look like she’s gone up in the world, she’s still the same old slightly unstable though oddly loyal and endearing Bet.

When Alfie and Daveboy track down the girl they’ve been tasked with finding, all seems well, but with a rogue scientist on the loose, the CIA quietly in pursuit and saying nothing to their UK counterparts, it’s all set to get a whole hell of a lot more complicated.

It’s nice to have the gang back, and it’s interesting to see the lives they’ve made for themselves in this new Britain. It’s a little hard not to feel somewhat wistful about not seeing any of the interim and witnessing exactly how the war was won beyond ‘Captain Blighty (Gully) and his superpowers helped a lot’ but everyone here is just as you remember under their respective veneers, and it’s clear that the old adventures are set to start again in earnest, albeit with new twists.

Verdict: A solid start to what promises to be an interesting season. 8/10

Greg D. Smith