Last night’s episode of The Bill was even more go-go-go than usual. It was the concluding episode of a two-parter, and the lads and lasses from Sun Hill station were charged with busting an internet paedophile ring before the bad guys could do a live broadcast of an 8 year old boy being abused.

Where The Bill distinguishes itself from other emergency service dramas is in being committed to telling one story at a time. Sure, they often use B stories, but that’s as far as it goes, and B and A stories often dovetail in some fashion. This isn’t like Holby City, where five or so plots jostle for position: what The Bill excels at is mapping out the procedures that the police would use in working on a particular crime.

What you’re getting then, is an under-the-hood look at police operations that, though fictionalised, have at least some basis in reality. This particular storyline was a chance to showcase a unit of police using computers to track down crime – not regular cast members, but relevant specialists whose work was an important part of getting the case closed.

We could get into the realm of whether stories about paedophilia are suitable for pre-watershed viewing, but given the subject is all over newspapers and kids are aware of it, the issue is, I believe, more to do with the way that it’s handled. And on that front, it was all very carefully thought through. The 8 year old victim was of course in serious jeapordy, but at no point did we see anything untoward happen to him, and the story ended with a happy resolution, kiddy reunited with family and evidence enough to bang up a national network of nonces.

Less important than the destination was the journey however, which featured some very strong writing, particularly in the excellent interview scenes. These are a Bill staple, and were particularly well done on this occasion, as a cool customer was broken down with the threat of what would happen to his own children in the event of his non-cooperation. That led the team to an allegedly recovered paedophile, a slippery customer who led the cops on a merry dance and did his best to shake them off his trail. He didn’t bank on the persistence of stalwart Terry, who realised that the man was goading him with the intention of putting him off the trail of a clue, and worked out what it was.

That was where things went wrong for me in an otherwise strong episode: the bad guy had an internet alias drawn from Greek mythology, and what he was trying to keep from Terry’s attention was his Big Book of Mythology. On the entry concerning his namesake, he had ringed a sequence of letters that served as his password for the computer server where all the filth was kept. Hmm.

That device of the password felt a bit clunky, but the pace of the episode was so fast that it wasn’t long before it was forgotten. That meant the audience could instead get the vicarious thrill of the heroes battering down the doors of the house where the live paedo broadcast was coming from, and bringing down a few scumbags in the process.

That makes the story sounds simpler than it was though. There were some interesting stuff featuring the victim’s mother and his hapless junkie uncle, and the dance between Terry and his antagonist was well realised and drew on Terry’s own experience of abuse in an understated way. Very nicely done, and a reminder that The Bill delivers crime drama from a police perspective to a high standard on a regular basis.

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Congratulations to regular reader Griff Phillips on his contribution to BBC7 show Tilt last night. This comes just a while after being a semi-finalist in The Sitcom Trials with his script Art for Art’s Sake, which I did a report on.