Dalziel and Pascoe: Season 1

A crime-solving marriage of opposites
Andy Dalziel does not suffer fools gladly, but he has even more trouble with what he calls the "smart arses" of this world. So when the inexperienced, soft-spoken, whiz-kid graduate Peter Pascoe joins his team at Mid-Yorkshire CID, there could be problems. Pascoe is one of the new breed of career police officers, armed with a degree in Social Sciences, a caring attitude and a sharp brain. At first Pascoe is somewhat taken aback by his brash and ballsy boss, but it soon becomes apparent there is more to Andy Dalziel than meets the eye. Pascoe and his feisty girlfriend Ellie find Dalziel by turns exasperating and amusing. And although Pascoe often has to bear the brunt of Dalziel's jibes, it is hard to resist his clumsy attempts at friendship.

Episode 1. A Clubbable Woman
Dalziel pays a visit to Wetherton Rugby Club, where he is still a member. But this is not a social call; he is on official business.
The club's golden boy, Sam Connon (once tipped to play for England) returned home injured from Saturday's match. Leaving his wife Mary watching television, he went for a lie-down. When he awoke, he found her still sitting there - with a neat, round and lethal hole in her skull.
Has Connon killed his wife, suspecting her of being unfaithful? Or could someone at the club have a grudge against the star player and his family?
At Mary's funeral, Dalziel and Pascoe learn that Arthur Evans had deliberately kicked Connon in the head during the match.
It transpires that Evans believes Connon is having an affair with his glamorous wife, Gwen, although later Pascoe sees Gwen embracing another club member, Marcus Felstead. The plot thickens when Jenny, Connon's daughter, receives an anonymous letter which claims Connon is not her father, and unearths crank letters written to her mother.
It seems that nearly everyone at the club could have had a motive for murder.
As the two detectives unravel the world of open rivalries, jealousies and secret infidelities that abound at the local rugby club, Pascoe, meets up with an old flame, Ellie Soper, who has taken a job not far from Wetherton.
Guest Stars
Sam Connon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ralph Brown
Jenny Connon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kate Farrah
Marcus Felstead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mark Lambert
Arthur Evans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Steven Spiers
Gwen Evans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrée Bernard

Episode 2. An Advancement of Learning
When a corpse is disinterred during the removal of a memorial at Holm Coltram University, the campus becomes a temporary headquarters for Dalziel and Pascoe, who set up their enquiry office in the Principal's study.
It soon becomes obvious that factions are splitting the college. Student Anita Sewell has been talked into taking her biology lecturer, Dr Sam Fallowfield, to a tribunal, accusing him of marking down her essays after their affair ended. Feelings are running high among staff and he is villified by prudish lecturer, Miss Disney.
When Anita is also found murdered, the mystery gathers momentum. Are the two incidents connected? Suspects abound. And why were the students, led by charismatic Students' Union President, Franny Roote, dancing naked in the woods on the night of her death?
From Miss Disney, Dalziel learns more about the late Principal, Miss Girling, who was supposedly killed on a skiing holiday five years earlier. Marion Carreux, the student commissioned to make the memorial, now a lecturer, also seems involved in some way.
Meanwhile Ellie Soper, also a lecturer at the University, is a useful source of information for Pascoe, drawing the couple together again.
Blackmail, mistaken identity and suicide are the subjects buzzing round campus as the two detectives gradually uncover a world of academic rivalry and staff room treachery.
Guest Stars
Miss Disney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Prunella Scales
Dr Sam Fallowfield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dominic Jephcott
Franny Roote . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . James D'Arcy
Anita Sewell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zoë Hart
Marion Carreaux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Catherine Wilkening

Episode 3. An Autumn Shroud
Wedding bells ring out in rain-soaked Lincolnshire as Peter Pascoe and Ellie Soper finally take the plunge and get married.
With a few ill-chosen words, Dalziel sees the happy couple off on their honeymoon - leaving him with no one to torment. So Dalziel sets off on a holiday of his own.
When his car becomes waterlogged on a flooded road, he is rescued by a passing funeral flotilla. The deceased was Conrad Fielding, and his beautiful widow Bonnie offers him temporary shelter in her magnificent but debt-laden country home, Lake House.
Bonnie seems less troubled by her husband's sudden demise than by the half-finished Elizabethan Banqueting Hall that was to have saved the family from bankruptcy. Meanwhile his hostess is arousing feelings in Dalziel that he thought he had forgotten. But their passionate dalliance is overshadowed when Bonnie's son Nigel goes missing and Dalziel discovers a body in the lake.
There is more excitement when visitors from the American Gumbelow's literary foundation arrive to bestow a lucrative poetry prize on Bonnie's father, Hereward. Perhaps the cash could save the mansion, but it is down to Dalziel to solve the problems of fraud, murder and family conspiracy and get to the ‘heart' of the matter.
Guest Stars
Bonnie Fielding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Francesca Annis
Hereward Fielding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Robin Bailey
Nigel Fielding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Mannering

Created by Reginald Hill
Directed by Ross Devenish, Maurice Phillips, Richard Standeven
Written by Alan Plater, Malcolm Bradbury
Produced by Eric Abraham, Chris Parr
Original Music by Barrington Pheloung

"...as classic a television partnership as Morse & Lewis." Sunday Telegraph

"Great characterisation and dialogue; and a freshness and confidence in the production. It should be a smash hit." The Sunday Times

"...classy, cerebral and witty."  Daily Express

"Dalziel and Pascoe will become a ratings blockbuster. Warren Clarke is a family audience monster...the sparkle in acting, direction and dialogue made thoroughly civilized middlebrow entertainment."  Daily Telegraph

"Those who like their whodunits clever and convincing without being sordid should clear the next three Saturday evenings." The Times

"I pronounce this a hit." Daily Mirror

"Excellent new crime-busting drama." Evening Standard

"(Dalziel & Pascoe) is set to be a prime time fixture." Time Out

"...a winner." Mail on Sunday

"Mr Hill peppers his ornate plots with delicious touches... Then there are the passing references to Shakespeare and Milton. And who can resist a detective who explains to an officious dunce: ‘The club has sprung a leak, and you need a dirty cop to fix it. And I'm the dirtiest cop in the district.' And the smartest. Stay tuned." New York Times