Well, I kind of had to watch. Tonight’s New Tricks was preceded by some nonsense in The Daily Mail (’know thine enemy’ is one good reason to keep tabs on what happens inside its pages) about what a well crafted and uplifting show it is, like what they made in the good old days, and how it fully deserves to be beating miserable and politically correct soap operas in the ratings. Plus, this particular episode was concerned with hypnosis and NLP, two related subjects I am more than passingly acquainted with, and I was curious about what would happen to them in the hands of comfy mainstream drama.

In practice, I was too busy trying to work out how the story worked to be upset by any passing damage that may have been done to the reputation of mesmerists. Besides, I’m not enough of a geek to care. Anyway, what seemed to be going on was that a now deceased magician of the old school had been stitched up by a young pretender working newfangled neurolinguistic tricks resulting in a young woman killing her husband, to ruin the reputation of the Paul Daniels type and secure the ascendancy of the Derren Brown stand-in.

As if that wasn’t complicated enough, there was additional stuff to do with the pseudo-Derren disguising himself and rumbling what the cops were up to. Only, he disguised himself as a blatant Monty Python comedy character, which didn’t convince. Plus, there was a guy called Merlin who was in contact with the woman who’d been Svengali’d into offing her hubby. Not sure what he was about, other than to provide a red herring. And then there was the wheelchair-bound brother of the maligned magician, who - cleverest of them all - set a trap for the NLPer that the police fell into. For a while anyway: the Mail didn’t get where it is by supporting programmes that show the police with egg on their face.

Frankly it was all too intricate to unpick, and I think that was part of the intention. Make it seemingly complex and people will think they’re being presented with intelligent drama, when really this was Last of the Summer Wine crossed with The Bill. Loveable codgers get into all kinds of antics when they examine unsolved cases. Waking the Dead with a ‘funny’ tie and without the intimations of mortality.

The thing is, there’s a market for this kind of stuff. I don’t get it personally - not a fan of cosy tv basically. And is it true that older viewers don’t want to be challenged? Maybe they’re just as likely to be watching Shameless and The Wire, but I haven’t looked into the demographics. I only hope that when I get beyond sixty, my idea of good telly is more radical than pablum like New Tricks. And I wish that actors of the calibre of James Bolam were presented with scripts that got them really working, and not just coasting in roles that win them pin-up status in SAGA magazines.

What would I do if I was asked to write an episode of New Tricks? Yeah, like it’d ever happen. But supposing it did…for a start, I’d make sure it was much more character-based than the overly plot-heavy episode I saw this evening, which packed too much story detail in at the expense of credible emotions and motivations. For a show that’s supposed to be fun, it was lacking in lightness of touch, unless that’s what the ongoing Gerry Rafferty subplot was meant to demonstrate.

The role model to go for, curiously, would seem to be Dr Who, which manages to tell big stories that have significance for its protagonists and has a huge heart at the same time. Cue Denis Waterman telling the audience how amazing he thinks pensioners are, with their brilliant mobility chairs and so forth. Hmm, maybe not. But there is, I’d like to think, room for a drama starring older people that doesn’t rely on faux-characterisation to create a bond with its audience, and which presents stories that can challenge, and not just comfort. And in the same way that Who is a show grandparents can enjoy with younger members of their families, wouldn’t it be great for the kids to share viewing with the oldies?