Pie in the Sky: Series 5

Have a final helping of humor and hijinks! Detective Inspector Henry Crabbe is pulled away from running his restaurant to be the head of the Public Duties Squad. In these eight episodes, this exasperating responsibility is made more maddening when he mysteriously loses his sense of smell!

Season 5, Episode 1: Squashed Tomatoes
Original Air Date-29 June 1997
Henry is appointed as the head of the Public Duties Squad, which essentially sells its services to the private sector, and, instead of the trusty D.S. Cambridge,he has two new staff members, W.P.C. Jane Morton and P.C Ed Guthrie, both of whom appear to have been side-lined in the past. Their first task is to guard a new housing estate which has been subject to vandalism. Local villagers claim that it is in the way of a centuries old right of way and, as usual, Henry has to use his diplomacy to form a resolution. On the home front there is trouble for Henderson when he is accused of growing tomatoes which do not conform to E.E.C. regulations and Henry has to sort out Gary, who is unhappy that waitress Nicola has left and is less than cordial to her replacement, Sally.

Season 5, Episode 2: Ugly Customers
Original Air Date-6 July 1997
Henry's team go to the garish Luxor Hotel to protect the jury in the long-running fraud trial of Marcus Benson, accused of embezzling the Police Benevolent Fund. Several of the jurors are intimidated, including the reasonable foreman,Eric Dunfries. Henry discovers that the pretentious manager is a friend of Benson and uses the fact to make him give scope to Andrew, his talented but put-upon chef. The saboteur, in fact, turns out to be working against, and not for, Benson, whilst back at the restaurant Sally learns to get the better of a sex pest.

Season 5, Episode 3: Pork Pies
Original Air Date-13 July 1997
Fisher sends Henry and the squad to a meat factory where animal rights protesters are demonstrating against the owner,Mr. Trubb's use of veal in his Trubbs' Thunderbolt sausages. However, Henry finds to his surprise that the sausages contain soya and are wholly meat-free. Margaret, meanwhile, is concerned when her friend Julia, a wealthy widow, falls for a pilot much younger than herself and agrees to finance a bucket shop for him.

Season 5, Episode 4: Cutting the Mustard
Original Air Date-20 July 1997
Henry and his team are called to a private boarding school where police Commander Colin Stilwell's son Alex has been beaten up by local youths. Henry initially encounters a wall of insular hostility from the establishment before Alex points him to another pupil, who has blackmailed the Chemistry teacher into manufacturing Ecstasy tablets, which he is selling around the school. Gary meanwhile creates a new blend of mustard and attracts the attention of a large food manufacturer who offer to market it. However, they want to alter the recipe, making it taste more bland, whereupon Gary, taking a leaf from Henry's book, puts his culinary principles first and tells them that the deal is off.

Season 5, Episode 5: Return Match
Original Air Date-27 July 1997
Henry has to solve a series of thefts from lorries and gets unexpected help from private security firm Troubleshooters. Their accuracy is such that he is suspicious of how they came to know of the crimes and believes that there is a possible informer within police ranks feeding them information for a reward. Troubleshooters are due to play the police eleven in an important football match. Both teams boast an ex-professional, in the police team's case Kirk Flowerbridge, who has a murky past and a liking for the drink. Fisher tasks Henry with minding Kirk and keeping him sober for the match. In the process of helping Kirk,Henry gets to identify the informer.

Season 5, Episode 6: The Apprentice
Original Air Date-3 August 1997
As Fisher launches a campaign to make the police more popular with young people a boy called Nicky comes to Pie in the Sky, claiming he is there for work experience. Henry uses him in the kitchen and he impresses everyone but then the till is robbed and Nicky, who was not sent by any school, goes missing. His mother last saw him a week earlier, the night an off-licence was robbed by a violent teenage gang. Henry tracks Nicky down to a childhood haunt and finds out that he was bullied into joining the gang and now regrets it, which he proves by leading them into a police trap.

Season 5, Episode 7: In the Smoke
Original Air Date-10 August 1997
The Crabbes holiday in London in a flat owned by ex-policeman Nick Spencer whilst he is in America on business. However Margaret finds his packed suitcase under the bed and hears an answer-machine message from his daughter warning that her violent ex-con boyfriend Danny is on his way to see him. Henry discovers Nick in hiding whilst Margaret discovers Danny's corpse in the dust-bin, killed in self-defence by Nick. Henry's loyalty is put to the test, as is the patience of Sally and Gary when the agency staff turn out to be a quarrelsome married couple.

Season 5, Episode 8: Smelling of Roses
Original Air Date-17 August 1997
As Henry mysteriously loses his sense of smell he is intrigued when Fisher seems obsessed with arresting tyre exporter Peter Watson and suspects that Fisher, about to divorce his wife, is having an affair with Mrs. Watson. In fact she has discovered that her husband is defrauding her charity and is using Fisher to trap him. Having seen the case through Henry, feeling used by Fisher to catch Watson, resigns from the police and immediately regains his sense of smell. With Gary turning down the offer of work at another kitchen, Henry and his staff and colleagues have every reason to drink to the continuing success of Pie in the Sky.

Directed by Martin Hutchings, David Innes Edwards, Lawrence Gordon Clark, Colin Gregg
Written by Andrew Payne, John Milne, Richard Maher < br> Produced by Jacky Stoller, Chrissy Skinns
Executive Produced by Allan McKeown, Joanna Willett, Ken Baker
Original Music by Colin Towns
Cinematography by Paul Bond
Film Editing by Jeremy Strachan, Nick McPhee
Costume Design by Pat Godfrey