Story
Action
Pace
Humour
Violence

When the ep kicks off, you think it's going to be yet another routine duffer with the lads doggedly trailing a couple of bombers through the London streets. You couldn't be more wrong! This is an amazing episode: lying comatose after being critically wounded, Doyle spends much of his time in a surreal, nightmare netherworld arguing with the spirits of Cowley and Bodie whether to allow himself to die. I could easily write a small book examining this segment alone! In the 1980s such an idea may have seemed preposterous to much of the audience but true-life cases of similar circumstances have emerged over the years.

This is an episode that has two stories: CI5 trying to stop the assassinations escalating and, more significantly, Doyle trying to come to terms with the horror his job entails. The excellent scripting and direction make the two threads work very well together - helped, of course, by the fact that the two murder attempts are linked. The sheer skill in the writing is yet another reminder of just how far ahead the series was compared to dross and "pretenders to the throne" like Dempsey and Makepeace.

Good brief moment of photography in the car park when all we see are the lads' shadows trying to chase the bombers' van.

Cowley is in fine form here - strong-minded and clear-headed. Yet this doesn't stop him from snapping at the surgeon and the government minister. He's also short-tempered with Bodie quite a bit and even drags him away from the hospital as Doyle goes into surgery: "There's nothing you can do here!"

Tackling Colonel Lin Foh at the inquest, Cowley warns that Britain has already endured too much terror - "We won't let you invade our streets - we've had enough!" - this may have been a reference to the 1970s bombing campaigns by the IRA.

The episode really kicks in from the moment Doyle is shot, which is effectively filmed with the right balance of shock and surrealism - and replayed a number of times during the episode to heighten the "atmosphere". In his tortured mind he even begs to be killed off. Strange camera angles, visual effects and percussive sounds are used to ready us for Doyle's descent into his frightening underworld.

There is some good attention to detail in the shooting scene, too. For example the presence of the exotic Chinese Garden that Doyle previously had been "forced" to buy from Mayli. The shooting itself is well-realised in that Doyle is bodily flung through the air: a point that Martin Shaw himself had made a couple of years previously about the effect of gunfire on the human body.

Bodie's reaction to the murder attempt is interesting: he finds his badly wounded partner and, instead of getting all emotional about it (as Doyle would have done had Bodie been the one to take the bullet), his military discipline takes over and he coolly, quickly, wordlessly and efficiently checks Doyle over, staunching the blood as much as possible and then summons help. There is but a slight suggestion of panic and he only starts to emote once Doyle is safely in the ambulance.

Next we have a scene from Doyle's "dream" where he and Bodie apparently meet for the first time. This is the start of some great "characterisation" scripting: B warns D that he needs to stay cool in order to survive in CI5, yet he still considers D could make a good partner. There is the motionless shadow of an unseen man in the background - is it Cowley? In all these scenes the dialogue is done as voiceover - as though the characters are communicating telepathically. And Doyle is constantly wearing his bloodsoaked T-shirt while his face is positively cadaverous... particularly in the scene where he witnesses his own funeral.

All this is interspersed within the real-world Cowley and Bodie trying to piece together what happened. Much of the story is told in flashback as Bodie tries to recall the events leading up to the shooting and finding a link to the attempt on the Oriental, Lin Foh. With the clipped dialogue and sharp editing we've come to love, these scenes are well worth watching too.

The scene with Cowley tackling his minister is great - as the government does not wish to make enemies with Lin Foh's successors, who are probably covertly supporting the student activists, it has not yet "worked out a policy" on what to do with the bombers. Cowley therefore finds his hands officially tied and, quite rightly, goes bananas!

Plenty of great action scenes as young Mayli makes her own attempt on Lin Foh.

Admittedly there's not much humour to speak of - in fact the funniest line in the original script was cut during production (see the Dialogue section below) - but comedy would hardly be appropriate here.

As you might expect from horror writer Chris Wicking, the episode is a bloodbath - and, other than one scene of Mayli opening fire on a squad member being cut for timing reasons, well done to Mark 1 and London Weekend Television for not toning it down. Perhaps the script's only fault is that we don't learn of what becomes of the other CI5 agents caught up in it. Doyle ultimately makes the right decision... but nobody wins.

Nice to see some experimentation with the format – and it works! I always think that this episode would have been the best way to finish the series.

A debatable one. When Doyle is shot, his backward motion across the floor arguably doesn't tally with the position in which he lands. (Thanks to Chiara Fantoni).

The opening scene shows Latowa and Charlie's van turning right at a road juntion, with the lads following them, mixing with other traffic. However the later flashback has different cars making up the traffic. Clearly a different "take" of the scene was used - but why?!

The old van used by the bombers proved to be unreliable and broke down several times. For these reasons the scenes in the underground carpark were curtailed somewhat and some outside shots were deferred for several days to allow the van to be properly repaired.

The original script called for even more use of flashbacks, particularly where we see Doyle in combat, the idea being to suggest he is reflecting on his violent past. Indeed they were actually filmed. Yet they were dropped for timing reasons in post-production editing and a lot of the footage in Doyle's flat was repeated instead. Seems an odd decision.

In the script, Bodie performs an impression of the newspaper editor commenting "You Inglis [sic] Johnnies all look the same to me!". It was probably cut for its racist overtones - particularly after the 'Klansmen' debacle.

The script was revised numerous times after filming had already commenced. Indeed it seems that writer Chris Wicking was no longer available as the amendments were largely co-written by the episode's director, Anthony Simmons, and series script editor Gerry O'Hara. The lads searching Charlie's flat, interrogating the newspaper editor, the funeral fantasy and Doyle's short "Stupidity!" monologue to Mayli were such additions. Also Wicking's original script had no transition from Doyle's comatose state to him returning to normal life: his recovery in hospital - and the funny scene of him being dragged out his wheelchair into the Capri - was very much an afterthought!

The poem Cowley finds in Doyle's flat is actually extracts from Max Ehrmann's Desiderata.

David Yip (the newspaper editor) was soon starring in his own series, the short-lived Chinese Detective. You'll spot him in minor roles in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and A View to a Kill. He had a short stint on Mersey soap Brookside before realising it was going downhill and then suddenly turned up in the long-running German 'tec series Tatort.

Philip Latham (the minister, Hogan) is one of those great actors who is instantly recognisable but, surprisingly, did relatively few TV shows in his long career. Starred in the little-remembered 1976 soap The Cedar Tree. His best-known film work was on Force 10 from Navarone. I assume he has now retired from acting.

Derek Waring (the surgeon, Doctor Seigel) had previously appeared in the New Avengers ep 'Tale of the Big Why'. He had a three-year stint on the long-running proto-Sweeney series Z-Cars but rather oddly for such a good actor was later limited to odd guest appearances in various sitcoms. Passed away in 2006.