Life on Mars

Sam encounters the young incarnation of Tony Crane, a nasty villain he put away in 2006. He realises he is faced with the chance every copper dreams about - stopping the killer before he kills. Sam fears that since his car accident in 2006, Crane has been released and has found his way to his hospital bedside where he is exacting his revenge on Sam's vulnerable body.

A spate of armed robberies lead the CID unit to prison, to escort notorious safe-cracker Dickie Fingers for interview back at the station. However, as they transport him they are set upon by a dangerous gang determined to get their hands on Fingers.

When a bomb warning is reported, A-Division go on red alert. According to the caller, the IRA have brought their mainland bombing campaign to Manchester. Being from 2007, Sam realises the bomb warning reported doesn't fit with his understanding of IRA methods. However when Sam's modern know-how fails and ends up putting his team at risk, they turn their back on him.

When the body of a young woman is found in wasteland, DCI Gene Hunt fears a serial killer he thought he'd sent down in the late '60s may still be at large. For Sam, the victim, a Beauvoir beauty rep like his own Aunt Heather, triggers vivid recollections of his childhood.

Utilising his knowledge of modern surveillance techniques, Sam is led to middle class suburbia where a local car dealer, Roger Twilling, is throwing private parties employing the poorly paid make-up girls to help out when the lights go down and the wife-swapping begins.

Sam and Annie go undercover as a young swinging couple to infiltrate the world of vol-au-vents, Blue Nun and lava lamps. Never one to miss out on the fun, Gene Hunt storms in uninvited with a female 'friend' posing as his other half.

Sam learns a man's wife and daughter have been kidnapped, and are being held hostage. Knowing that time is ticking away on the women's lives, Sam is determined to shake the demons from his head, focus on the investigation and help the desperate family.

As heroin hits the streets of Manchester for the first time, CID and DCI Hunt want culprits for the smuggling, the dealing and ensuing violence. As Sam tries to get to the source of the influx of this deadly drug, he finds himself intractably drawn to a beautiful young woman who was witness to a heroin-related shooting.

Sam is awoken in the middle of the night by a drunk DCI Hunt, who thinks he's killed someone. While Sam gets to work on proving his colleague's innocence in the shooting of a local underworld bookie, he is monitored by the stand-in DCI, Frank Morgan, a man intent on doing the internal investigation by the book so thoroughly that Sam can't help but be impressed.

As Sam questions the dubious ethics behind their methods and motives, he meets Morgan one-on-one - and Morgan has something to tell him. But events unfold disastrously as CID begin to learn the truth about Sam just as the heist is in progress.