Series 6 of Waking the Dead, in which the marvellous Tara Fitzgerald arrives and it feels like she’s always been there – golden era stuff
“It’s good that it’s come out now”
I feel a bit sorry for Esther Hall’s Felix, drafted in as the inimitable Frankie’s replacement and then unceremoniously dumped at the end of one series, never to be mentioned again. And whilst it is odd that there’s no reference to this at the beginning of Series 6 of Waking the Dead, the arrival of Tara Fitzgerald’s Dr Eve Lockhart is seamlessly done, her off-screen joining of the team meaning the character hits the ground running.
She’s a delightful addition to the team, far closer in spirit to Frankie but very much her own person, able to hold her own against these strident personalities. It’s good to see Trevor Eve’s Boyd getting called out for being an absolute prick, you just wish the consequences of Grace quitting the team were a little more far-reaching (though you wouldn’t want to do without Sue Johnston now).
And across the range of stories we get here, there’s just a real sense of all parts clicking well together to deliver some cracking TV. Traveller rituals, hidden Nazis, colonial legacies in the Sudan, financial crime and Opus Dei…, this is an excellent set of episodes which probably ranks as one of the best series of the show.
Top guest appearances
- A fresh-faced Carey Mulligan pops up as a haunted young nun in ‘Wren Boys’
- ‘Deus Ex Machina’ is full of faces, chief of whom is the always excellent Alex Jennings as the secretive James Andrews
- A pre-Doctor Who Peter Capaldi is highly effective as high-level weirdo Lucien Calvin in ‘The Fall’
- And fast-forwarding to the finale, Michelle Forbes’ mysterious Sarah is a highly intriguing figure as the mysteries of ‘Yahrzeit’ play out…
- …with Eileen Atkins in imperious form too as Abigail Dusniak, for whom the past catches up in agonising fashion
