"The last detective. That's what you are, Dangerous — the last detective I'll ever think of, unless it's a crap job, see? Then you'll be the first." — Rob Spendlove as Detective Inspector Aspinall, The Last Detective: Series 1

The Last Detective is a very popular television series in England, and the first volume of the fourth series is just being released tomorrow. Peter Davison plays Constable “Dangerous” Davies, the lowest man on the totem pole inside the detective division of the Willesden constabulary.

Davies is the British Rodney Dangerfield, getting no respect from anybody, neither his colleagues, his wife, nor the people he meets in the course of his duties. The series title comes from Dangerous’ boss at the cop shop, whom all call Gov, or Governor. Gov is arrogant, quick to criticize Davies, and just as quick to give Davies’ colleagues the better assignments. Gov and Dangerous are constantly at loggerheads because, although Dangerous is the office’s patsy, he’s also usually the one who picks up on the clues that the others miss, and who follows up on things that should have been followed up on, but weren’t. He’s also inevitably the one who figures out the perpetrator of the crime of each of the episodes. But Dangerous still gets no respect.

It doesn’t come up in the five episodes on this DVD, but there’s a good chance that Dangerous got his name because he’s dangerous mainly to himself, constantly getting into embarrassingly funny situations at least once per episode. In the opening episode, “Once Upon A Time On The Westway,” less than five minutes into the action Dangerous is nearly impaled on the top of a fence he’s trying to scale. One of the pointed iron bars manages to tear into his trousers and get him hung up, while the trio who broke into a produce warehouse pelt him with tomatoes, then run off, leaving him hanging there. Sixties and seventies rock music fans will recognize Roger Daltrey of The Who as one of the bad guys, a member of a criminal gang that Dangerous is investigating in connection with a diamond heist. The heist is overtaken by the gang boss being murdered in his own home, then the two cases merge into one.

The second episode, “Dangerous Liaisons,” is the story of what seems to be an accidental death. It quickly becomes a murder investigation, which leads to a two-decades old snuff film that everybody is quick to label a fake. Of course it turns out otherwise, drawing Dangerous even deeper into the mystery when he discovers a body buried in the cellar. Dangerous, in spite of his sometimes apparent fecklessness, rapidly narrows the field of suspects. The investigation takes still another turn when the primary suspect quickly becomes the next victim