Waking the Dead

British crime drama running from 2000 (pilot) to 2011. The ninth and final series recently finished broadcasting.

It follows the activities of the Metropolitan Police's fictional Cold Case Squad, led by Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd (Trevor Eve), a man who likes to YELL AT PEOPLE.

In each episode an old crime is discovered or rediscovered, sometimes because someone has been killed in the present day (if not, someone usually will be). The Cold Case Squad use modern forensic techniques to solve the unsolved cases. Well, that and Peter Boyd shouting at the suspects.

The show contains dark subject matter and graphic scenes, which is why it is shown after the Watershed. "Contains scenes that some viewers may find disturbing" is there for a reason- this show is full of potential Nightmare Fuel.

Each story is 2 hours long (no ads), shown in two parts on consecutive days.

More character info- Contains spoilers.


 * Action Girl: Stella.
 * Alone with the Psycho: Grace, a rather old choice for this.
 * Bound and Gagged: A female regular is tied up in three of the four stories of Season 8. In the other episode, it's a guest star
 * British Brevity: Sure, it lasted nine seasons, but each of them only had eight or ten episodes (and each case covered two episodes!).
 * Dead Little Sister: Boyd's missing son.
 * Dead Person Impersonation:
 * Deliberately Monochrome: "Skin", with little splashes of red in during some scenes.
 * Dropped a Bridge on Him:
 * Everyone Looks Sexier If French: Stella is half-French and raised in that country.
 * Fair Cop: DC Stella Goodman. A Frenchwoman whose usual (dyed) hair colour is red, she does look rather good in an armed officer uniform. Also Mel Spencer and Katrina Howard.
 * Fan Disservice
 * Forensic Drama
 * Flash Back: Sometimes to the point of overuse.
 * Hey, It's That Guy!: If you look carefully in Casino Royale, the actress who plays Stella Goodman makes a cameo as a news reporter (it's just after the Miami scene).
 * Michelle Forbes of Star Trek: The Next Generation fame turned up in one story.
 * So did stage actress Kate Fleetwood, who played Mary Cattermole in Harry Potter.
 * I Was Quite a Looker: Grace.
 * The Lab Rat: Eve Lockhart, with a collection of wonderful analysis tools that puts the CSI Verse to shame. Well, until the New York lot got that hologram corpse thing.
 * Mommy Issues: The killer in the pilot.
 * Mood Lighting
 * The Profiler: Grace.
 * Rabid Cop: Boyd by definition, but Goodman gets deliberately used in this role on occasions.
 * Raised Catholic: Boyd and Grace.
 * Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic: Averted through adlibbing and the style of direction.
 * Retcon: In The Pilot, Boyd has a wife/partner and a young child, and Grace mentions having kids of her own. All of this was quickly dropped when the show was picked up for the first series.
 * Shell-Shocked Veteran: The victim in "Burned Out" was a soldier that came a bit touched from The Falklands War, then became a war reporter and went full over the edge after covering The Yugoslav Wars.
 * Western Terrorists:
 * Viewers Are Goldfish: About half of "Missing Persons" is made of flashbacks.