Murder Investigation Team (TV series)

Murder Investigation Team
Series 1 Title Card (2003)
Format	Detective
Starring	Lindsay Coulson Michael McKell Samantha Spiro Steven Pacey Meera Syal Richard Hope Howard Ward Andrew Somerville Joe Shaw Will Mellor Abhin Galeya Diane Parish Richard Huw Vincenzo Pellegrino Hugh Sachs
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
No. of series	2
No. of episodes	12
Production
Running time	45 mins. (Series 1) 75 mins. (Series 2)
Broadcast
Original channel	ITV, STV, UTV
Original run	3 May 2003 – 1 August 2005

Murder Investigation Team is a British police procedural drama series produced by the ITV network as a spin-off from the long-running series, The Bill. The series is based around the cases of a Murder Investigation Team, who are linked to the Sun Hill borough of London, as featured in The Bill.

Background

The series is closely styled on the popular American drama series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami and CSI: NY. Like The Bill, the series was filmed in the Royal Borough of Greenwich and locations included the Former Woolwich campus of the University of Greenwich. The first series debuted on 3 May 2003, and ran for eight episodes. This series was filmed with the working title Think Murder, and was produced by Tom Cotter. The first episode featured the team investigating the drive-by shooting of one of The Bill's most popular characters, Sgt. Matthew Boyden. Several members of The Bill's cast also appeared in the episode. The first series also featured guest appearances from such actors as Gary Kemp, Paul Bown and Bradley Walsh. After a two year hiatus, a second series of four episodes debuted on 11 July 2005. All four episodes had previously been broadcast in February 2005 in Australia. This series features the re-appearance of DC Eva Sharpe, who joined the team, transferring from the CID office at Sun Hill. Each episode in series two was extended by half an hour and was produced by ITV's head of drama, Jonathan Young. In September 2005, The Sun reported that ITV would not be commissioning a third series, and so the show was axed.

Cast

Character	Actor	First appearance	Last appearance
DCI Malcolm Savage	Steven Pacey	Moving Target: Part 2	The Bigger The Lie
DCI Anita Wishart	Meera Syal	Phone Tag	Sexual Tension
DI Vivien Friend	Samantha Spiro	Moving Target: Part 2	The Bigger The Lie
DI Trevor Hands	Michael McKell	Moving Target: Part 2	Sexual Tension
DS Rosie McManus	Lindsey Coulson	Moving Target: Part 2	Sexual Tension
DS Barry Purvis	Richard Hope	Moving Target: Part 2	Sexual Tension
DS Jim Daws	Howard Ward	Moving Target: Part 2	The Bigger The Lie
DC Patrick Lincoln	Andrew Somerville	Moving Target: Part 2	The Bigger The Lie
DC Scott Granger	Joe Shaw	Moving Target: Part 2	The Bigger The Lie
DC Jed Griffiths	Will Mellor	Phone Tag	Sexual Tension
DC Simon Tait	Abhin Galeya	Phone Tag	Sexual Tension
DC Eva Sharpe	Diane Parish	Phone Tag	Sexual Tension
Dr John Cornell	Richard Huw	Moving Target: Part 2	The Bigger The Lie
Dr Fergus Gallagher	Vincenzo Pellegrino	Moving Target: Part 2	The Bigger The Lie
Dr Charles Renfield	Hugh Sachs	Phone Tag	Sexual Tension

Episodes

#	Title	Episode notes	Directed by	Written by	Original air date
1	"Moving Target: Part 2"	Crossover episode with The Bill.			3 May 2003
Following the deaths of Sgt. Matthew Boyden and an unidentified black man in a drive-by shooting, the gunman makes a speedy getaway leaving the police with no idea which man was the intended target. His copper colleagues look on, devastated, as the team comb the crime scene. Meanwhile his own drug addicted daughter, Amy, hears the news from a custody cell back at the nick. Still in shock, evidence collected from his daughter and colleagues lead the team to discover Boyden wasn't always on the right side of the law. Sure he may have had a few skeletons in his closet, but did anyone hold a killer grudge? The investigation takes a surprising turn when Sam is brought in for questioning - her underage daughter has been involved with Boyden and she is now a major suspect in the murder enquiry. But until the second victim can be identified. Vivien knows she is only working with half an investigation.
2	"Daddy's Little Girl"	Bradley Walsh guest stars.			10 May 2003
Vivien investigates the murder of a young woman whose remains have been found preserved in a concrete tomb at a demolition site. The only clues to her identity are a healed scar along her left hand and a puncture mark at the base of her spine from a medical procedure. The police investigation leads to a 3 year old missing persons case in which a young girl vanished from her parents' pub without trace. When the autopsy confirms it is the same missing girl, Vivien has to break the news of her death to her distraught parents Celia and Phil Seabrook. The strongest lead is a mysterious photograph of their daughter with an unidentified man, and when the pathologist reveals their child Lucy was in the early stages of a pregnancy, the race is on to find him.
3	"Rubbish"				17 May 2003
The dismembered body of a small child is found on a Thames rubbish barge. A painstaking search through layers of decaying rubbish reveals some clues but a discovery during the post mortem is even more disturbing. The little boy's heart has been crudely removed from his body and it looks like his murder could be African ritualistic killing. The murdered child's parents have logged a missing persons report, but their priest prevents Vivien from making contact. Offering to act as their interpreter, the priest speaks on their behalf, but Vivien soon realises the parents do, in fact, speak English. Does the priest know more about the child's murder than he is letting on? And where is their younger child Francis? It's a race against time for the team who have the chance to save a life instead of being there at the end of one.
4	"Reading, Writing and Gangbanging"				24 May 2003
The team are called out to a double murder on a run down housing estate. A middle-aged teacher, Martin Ramsey, has been pushed from his third floor window, and an old homeless man, Nelson Fairgrave, is found floating in a nearby lake - but what is the connection between the two men? A promising line of enquiry opens up when the police find out Ramsey was being intimidated by an ex-pupil, but there is little information to be had about the homeless man. When the police find several different trainer prints near to the lakeside they know they are looking for more than one man, but who would have wanted to kill Nelson Fairgrave, and why has Ramsey's computer been tampered with?
5	"Red Heads"				31 May 2003
When the body of Penny Wake, a young red-haired housewife, is found in undergrowth by a couple out jogging, Vivien and the team are called in to investigate her death. There are no signs of a struggle but her body has been cleaned inside and out with bleach - the police know they are looking for a calculating and forensically aware killer. Her husband, Henry, has no alibi for the night of her murder and is consequently their prime suspect, but when another red-haired woman is brought into the local hospital drugged and disorientated a new line of enquiry opens up for the police team which will lead them to one man's terrible and dark secret.
6	"Lambs To The Slaughter"				7 June 2003
When a convicted paedophile, Barry Morton, is bludgeoned to death in his own home it looks like the work of vigilantes. The Murder Investigation Team's most promising lead in the enquiry is the phone call that the victim made to a possible associate, Peter Taylor. Barry has been calling Peter on a regular basis so when the police search his house and find photos of Barry with Peter's wife it throws up all manner of questions. Soon the police discover that Barry has recorded his own murder on his wife's answer machine, and Vivien realises that if they can decipher the background noises on the tape they might be able to piece together what really happened to Barry.
7	"Models and Millionaires"				14 June 2003
Natasha McKay is the woman with everything - a glamorous modelling career and a rich property developer for a husband. But when her disfigured body washes up on the banks of the Thames it becomes apparent that Natasha's life was not all that it seemed. An ex-school friend comes forward to the police to come clean about his affair with Natasha: they were in love and they were going to marry. But when the police interview her husband Dennis McKay, he has an alibi for the night of her disappearance.
8	"The Bigger The Lie"	Series One Finale			21 June 2003
Tensions run high in the Bangladeshi Community when the body of journalist Ellen Merrick is found dead in a disused shop in the local market place. Witnesses are reluctant to come forward to the police so the only clue the team have to work with is a bloody trainer print and some fibres from a nylon tracksuit at the crime scene. The team urgently need to find out what story Ellen was working on at the time of her death, but newspaper colleagues are reluctant to co-operate and with silence from the local community, Vivien needs to move quickly if she is to catch Ellen's killer, but she certainly doesn't count on another case opening up before her eyes.
9	"Phone Tag"	Series Two Premiere			11 July 2005
The team are called in when Ed Villarin, a young Lithuanian, collapses and dies in the street during a game of 'phone tag', in which strangers join the game over the internet and must 'hunt' and photograph the 'target' with their mobile phone.
10	"Vipers' Nest"				18 July 2005
The team uncover a vipers' nest of malpractice and drug dealing after a popular hospital registrar, Karl Anderson, is pushed off a hospital roof. With many suspects to question, and a number of leads to follow, the team soon find themselves under pressure to catch the killer before he strikes again.
11	"Professional"				25 July 2005
The pressure is on the team as the net tightens to secure a result when a professional football player is found dead near a local park. Suspicion falls on both his close and estranged family - but no secure leads or forensic evidence can lead to a concrete conviction.
12	"Sexual Tension"	Series Two Finale			1 August 2005
Sexual tension becomes rife among the team when a crime scene colleague is found strangled in her flat. Trevor soon becomes the main suspect in her murder - but can his best friend and most respected colleague Rosie prove that he is not capable of murder?

DVD releases

DVD release name	Episodes	Years of Series	UK Release Date (Region 2)	North American Release Date (Region 1)	Australian Release Date (Region 4)	Worldwide (Region 0)
Murder Investigation Team - Series One	1-8	2003	25 October 2004	1 March 2011	N/A	N/A
Murder Investigation Team - Series Two	9-12	2005	N/A	27 March 2012	N/A	N/A

External links

• Murder Investigation Team at the Internet Movie Database