New Tricks: Season 2

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Big fish, unidentified body parts found in a forest, wild boars, celebrity cooks, crooks, missing diamonds, and cold cases are all part of the second season of 'New Tricks,' a highly entertaining, if somewhat quirky, British detective series featuring a team of retired detectives and their boss, a female police superintendent who had been on a fast track until she shot a dog during a hostage rescue.Sound like fun?It is.'New Tricks' is one of the longest-running detective shows on British television and with good reason: It mixes humor with pathos, triumph with tragedy and its cast is top flight. In this second season of the hit series the Unsolved Crimes and Open Cases Squad gets a new deputy commissioner to butt bureaucratic heads with and he is no treat. Smart, politically astute and well connected Deputy Commissioner Robert Strickland is determined to keep the team on budget and forces it to handle some cases that will advance his career in addition to closing the files on some old crimes. He may have met his match in Superintendent Sandra Pullman, however, the team's leader: Tough, career oriented and a top investigator in her own right, she has enough trouble riding herd on her three "dinosaurs" without Strickland's meddling and she's not afraid to fight back when the occasion demands.The series stars Amanda Redman as Pullman, James Bolam as her one-time mentor and former boss Jack Halford, the marvelous Alun Armstrong as the flawed genius Brian Lane and Dennis Waterman as Gerry Standing, a slightly dodgy ex-cop with a penchant for breaking the rules when it helps him solve a case. Anthony Calf as Strickland has the right look and the right attitude to step into the role as the new Deputy Commissioner. Together, they constitute an ensemble cast that has kept New Tricks on top of the ratings pile for close to a decade.If you are a fan of British mystery programs, you'll enjoy this season of New Tricks because the dialogue is snappy, the cases the team tackles are interesting and the direction is seamless.I highly recommend it.

Whoever came up with the idea for New Tricks was a genius. Whoever came up with the casting was a genius x 2. The result is Britain's most popular drama series.In Season 2, the UCOS (Unsolved Crime and Open Case) squad is really beginning to hit its stride. The stories are imaginative, the mysteries satisfying, but the main charm of the series is in the characters. There's detail-obsessed Brian, cheery cockney Gerry, wise old Jack and their boss, smart, tough Sandra, all adding their strengths to the solving of each crime. Along with the drama, there's lots of humor and a good deal of nose-thumbing at authority.Recruiting veteran actors for this project was a major brain-wave. James Bolam (Jack), Alun Armstrong (Brian) and Dennis Waterman (Gerry) have all appeared many times on British TV, but never to better advantage than they appear here. They play off each other brilliantly and seem to be having a great time in each other's company. In this series, Amanda Redman (Sandra) loosens up a bit and joins the old reprobates in their crafty undermining of the system and subtle mockery of their strait-laced head of department, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Strickland. The camaraderie of the group, the funny lines and the unorthodox approach they bring to crime-solving all add up to a wonderfully original series.Thoroughly recommended.

We all know that the Brits know how to write intelligent television shows. This one is one of their best imports. It has style. It has flair. It has comedy. It has mystery. But most of all it has CHARACTERS. Each is distinctive with the human flaws that make you take them to your heart and root for them to overcome the 'bad guys'. The idea of putting three retired cops with different strengths under a female leader is priceless and makes for witty repartee while also keeping each man on his toes with his fellow workers. The mystery plots are well done and you don't have the 'cookie cutter' actors and actresses like you have here in the U.S.A.My only complaint---WHERE ARE SEASONS THREE AND FOUR??? Come on, PLEASE RELEASE THEM, LET THEM GO. This series deserves a greater American audience...if only for the characters.

I enjoy lots of British TV shows, especially those shown on Masterpiece Theater. I was casting about to find something to watch while MPT is dormant. Reviews of New Tricks caught my eye and I ordered the first three seasons. There are plenty of reviews out there that go into detail about the series so I won't repeat those. I have been pleasantly entertained with the comedy that keeps me laughing. I also like the fact that since these four people are trying to solve cold cases, there is very little gore and mayhem. It's really not needed to keep things moving along. I had planned to not order another season, but there is such a cliff-hanger at the end of the third season that I had to order the fourth and look forward to seeing the result.