Waking the Dead: Season 4

Solving crimes frozen in the past

Chief Inspector Boyd and his team are back to reopen the files of more cold cases. A spectral leader, calling himself "The Shepherd," is inciting vulnerable women to commit murder; a sadomasochistic killer is counting off his victims, leaving the word "sorry" carved into their skin; and the discovery of an unexploded bomb threatens to bring unforeseen upheaval to the team. Meanwhile, Boyd's visiting a shrink to deal with his anger management, while an apparently mild-mannered ex-con starts to reveal signs that he's actually well connected in a sinister crime ring. Whatever happens, whatever the result, Boyd is determined to get to the bottom of every crime, even if he must examine his own ways of working to unravel the truth. But the final case of the season brings a shocking turn of events that shakes the team to its core.

Case One: In Sight of the Lord
1948: Post-war Britain and an ex-soldier has been found dead with his skull nailed to the floor. Now this case has been re-opened due to media attention and pressure created by his grandson.The killer strikes again and the team discover another linked murder from the 1960s. A further victim is found nailed to the floor - this time in a nursing home for the elderly. Is the Second World War the linking factor? The team must find the next possible victim but noone knows where he is.

Case Two: False Flag
Contemporary London: A garage is demolished. As the building falls apart, demolition work is halted at the sight of a skeleton sitting in the driver's seat. An unexploded bomb is found under the car which is soon linked to an Irish terrorist cell from the late 1970s.The team tread carefully to unravel the story of the would-be bomber. Why was he killed and why did the bomb fail to detonate?

Case Three: Fugue States
Notting Hill Carnival, 1988:Two five-year-old twins are taken from their home. A nationwide search is launched, but they are not found. Fifteen years later, one of the twins, Jason, is admitted to hospital after a traffic accident.The hunt now begins to establish where his sister, Cindy, might be and if she is still alive. Meanwhile, Jason has disappeared and a murder has taken place.

Case Four:Anger Management
Wormwood Scrubs: Sam, one of the prisoners is released to start a new life. But then a man is murdered in the hostel where Sam stays. Soon he is a suspect. But it looks as though Sam was in fact the intended victim. Sam has a hidden past which the team can only speculate about. On the surface he appears to be a devoted family man, so why does he have influential connections in the criminal world?

Case Five:The Hardest Word
A sadomasochistic serial killer is at large.The killings are brutal and the victims are found with the word 'Sorry' carved in their backs. When the killer strikes at the heart of the team, the investigation takes a new track and the motive for the murders takes on a very different meaning.

Case Six: Shadow Play
A young woman who has psychiatric problems has killed her family through an arson attack on her family home. She claims she was incited to do this by a mysterious figure known only as 'The Shepherd'. It transpires that two more women also with mental illnesses claimed they were incited to commit murder by the same person in the past. The team need to discover if this is a journey through the imagination or reality.

Series Devised by Barbara Machin
Written by Stephen Davis, Ed Whitmore
Produced by Richard Burrell
Directed by David Thacker, Andy Hay, Robert Bierman, Betsan Morris Evans, Suri Krishnamma
Executive Produced by Alexei de Keyser

"...the best drama on TV." Sunday Express (David Stephenson)

"...one of the best dramas on TV." People (Sarah Moolla)

"I'm completely addicted. How has this come about? Well, partly I'm a sucker for a good story, and Waking the Dead
 has plot twists and genuine surprises. It's also classily made." Leicester Mercury

"Waking The Dead has enough twists and turns to send a Poirot into apoplexy and Holmes into rehab ... I'm tempted
to give it my vote as the best home-grown crime drama we have at the moment." Western Daily Press

"The longer it goes on, the stronger this series becomes ... There was always a genuine sense of teamwork among the characters - a mixture of playfulness, empathy and mutual respect - that is hard to fake.Now, the series has begun to poke around in the backgrounds of the main characters and take on more sinister themes." The Times (David Chater)

"...reliably good ... implausible and intriguing at the same time - I can't wait to find out [the killer] when the programme concludes tonight." Daily Telegraph (James Walton)

"...Eve's consummate performance as Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd..." Scotsman

"The cast is as watchable as ever:Trevor Eve as Det Supt Boyd is one of those actors who can make even the dullest dialogue crackle with static, and Sue Johnston and Holly Aird as members of his cold-crime detective squad are more than capable of holding their own. It also contains some marvellously sly lines." The Times

"The office by-play ... is the real pleasure of this series: in particular, Eve and Sue Johnston, as the resident psychiatrist, manage a throwaway quality to their flirty, combative dialogue that reminds me a little bit of William Powell and Myrna Loy in the Thin Man films." Independent (Robert Hanks)

"Waking the Dead belongs to the stylishly grisly school of police procedural where the cops wander around atmospherically dark offices that look like a cross between film noir sets and fashion catalogues ... What gives this series a refreshing edge over the competition is the intelligence of the dialogue. Characters talk across each other, as people do in real life. They make tasteless jokes, en passant, while genuinely worrying about each other's states of mind." The Times ( Paul Hoggart)

"...compelling ... thoroughly enjoyable..." Observer

"...increasingly successful crime drama... ****" Mail On Sunday