One of the weakest stories of the series so far last night, involving a dead criminal who came back to life halfway through his sex change and whose new identity fooled absolutely no-one except the slow-witted plod, hid one or two rather interesting plot developments including the final appearance of Alex’s mystery stalker. Even so, as the weeks tick inexorably by, rather than being sucked in by the mystery I’m finding the glacial pace extremely irritating and summoning up enough interest in the eventual outcome increasingly hard.

More Ashes to Ashes.

Does anybody name their first child after the pet kitten they had as a teenager? And Alex, standing in her teenage husband’s bedroom, presumably at least ten years before he becomes her husband or maybe even meets her, banging on about past misdemeanours and unsavoury character traits that led to the break-up of their marriage? What the… dickens… was that all about? Even for a “construct” – if she still thinks of the denizens of the eighties in that way – did she really expect a reaction from him?

Didn’t work for me at all, that.

This week, as for most weeks of this series so far, the crime story is just a way of passing an hour while I wait for the few breadcrumbs of actual meaning to drop from the table. Some of them are diverting. Some are feeble. Some are plain boring. This one didn’t hold my interest at all. It was obvious very early one that Gaynor was George and after that it was just a matter of waiting for Gene and his crew to catch up. And I’m as bored with the whole “police brutality” and “interview techniques” as Ray seemed to be this week. At least he has the option of running off and joining the army.

Martin Summers was revealed this week to be a terminally-ill 21st century man who has elected to come back in time to escape his cancer and live out the rest of his days where he can smoke without being made to feel like a social leper. And where, incidentally, he won’t be doing his lungs any more damage because they’re not real. What was interesting about this was the fact that he chose to travel back and what’s more, behaved as if this was perfectly normal behaviour – an escape route known to everyone – even though he admitted he and Alex are the only two to be occupying the 80s at the moment. Maybe the others are visiting other eras? Who knows.

He suggested to Alex that Operation Rose might be her exit route back to her own time, but Alex knows this means he wants her to become corrupt, or at least turn a blind eye to it. In the end, she turns him down, and he leaves her with the (supposedly) chilling warning that, since he can’t change her mind, maybe Operation Rose will. Or maybe Operation Rose is simply the operation that Alex will be undergoing next week to get that darned bullet out of her skull. Could it be that simple? Maybe we’ll find out in the next three weeks. Or maybe the buggers will keep us waiting until series three. Too cruel.