The Enigma Files

It seems to be all but forgotten now, and I suppose it didn't attract much notice at the time, but I have a fond remembrance of this series. Although it's impossible to avoid the clichés of detective drama, this had a good format that allowed for a variety of stories, while allowing some development of character. The background is that a good detective, Nick Lewis, has been unfairly and unwillingly taken off active duty and given a desk job in charge of "prisoners' property". He has two assistants, one an efficient female, Kate Burton, who resents being passed over for promotion for a job she can basically do single-handed and an easy-going male, Phil Strong, who is a whizz at technology and especially adept at hacking into the police computers - a fairly novel idea at the time. Stories arise out of unsolved crimes on file (the Enigma Files), returning prisoners' property, the activities of Nick's attractive daughter and repercussions from Nick's past. Strangely for a series, the regular character Kate hands in her notice in the first episode and leaves by the middle of the series (having made her peace with Nick), to be replaced by Sue Maxwell. My favourite episode was "Repeat after Me", which left Nick baffled while the other characters handled the case behind his back.

The premise had a short life. The premise is a prominent police inspector is punished with a desk job as far from police work as possible after his superintendent was driven from the force. His new duty is overseeing the files tied to unsolved cases. Out of mostly duty and perhaps boredom, the detective begins investigating the cases on his own. The flaw with that premise is, how can this one detective aided by two administrative civil servants succeed in solving too many cases without it seeming preposterous or before the detective being reassigned back to active police duty after doing such incredible police work? All of the cases already led to dead ends with leads that had long since dried up.

The writer/writers figured that flaw out quick enough so the stories mostly relate to the main characters and other things like stumbling on current crimes occurring instead of a bunch of old unsolved cases. Of course, that makes the title somewhat confusing, doesn't it?

Maybe it isn't the best sign but I think I remember most how absolutely horrendous all of the weather appears in the location shootong for this series. I know it's England but come on! Even the Avengers had some sunny days. Engima Files isn't the greatest show I've seen in this genre but it is respectible.

When they finally gouge BBC gems from the vaults in DVD format, I hope they'll make this available too. The stories revolved around a little known police department that dealt with moribund cases that hadn't been solved. I can't remember too much more about it except that it wasn't particularly marvellous, but Tom Adams, the lead character, provided an unusual central focus for each of the relatively trite story lines. Adams went on the offensive in English Sunday newspapers about just how less-than-perfect some other TV detectives were, such as TV private eye Eddie Shoestring (Trevor Eve) and BBC's Target series Steve Hackett (Patrick Mower) (since Trevor Eve's wife (Sharon Maughan) was initially in the cast of "The Enigma Files", this was probably not too smart). Also memorable as a starting vehicle for the comedian Dougie Brown, who seemed more than adequate for the task.

The basic premise of the show is that an honest and hardworking cop's career progression hits the buffers when his superior, with whom he's friendly and remains loyal to, is accused of corruption and forced out of the force. Our hero is sent to what's perceived as a dead-end position, that being the department that holds evidence relating to cold cases. From a storytelling point of view this was genius because the writer of the show (and unusually all the episodes were written by one gent and not a team of writers) could then either have our hero investigate cold cases or take on cases that happen to fall into his lap without him getting too wrapped up in police bureaucracy. Helping our hero is a lady civil servant in charge of maintaining the records relating to the cold case evidence and a technical and scientifically inclined fellow who's like an early one man CSI team. All the stories are different and aren't always concluded as you'd imagine. I only stumbled across this show a week or 2 ago and I'm not sure why I'd never heard of it until now. If there was any justice in this world (and the older I get the clearer it is to me that there is very little) then this would have been a hit and run for a very long time. It's an underappreciated gem of a show so if you get the chance check it out - I don't believe you'll come away disappointed.