There’s a dodgy geezer in my neighbourhood. He wears shorts and a vest most of the year, has his hair in a ponytail, and the only sign that he works is a poster I’ve seen in his van promoting a retro rave night he put together one Bank Holiday. Local teenagers are often in his company, and I am convinced this is because he is peddling drugs to them. Lacking espionage skills or evidence, where am I supposed to turn to deal with this social menace?

That’s where The Fixer comes in: a covert action team controlled by a shady government agency, with the capability to wipe out troublesome individuals. In my fantasies, I call them and they show up in an inconspicuous car. The woman flirts with the drug lord at the front door while the chavvy member of the team gets into the house at the rear, casing the joint thoroughly and finding evidence of the drugs empire the dodgy geezer runs, leaving it to the tough guy to pop round that night and place three well-aimed bullets into that vest of his while he’s wearing it.

Only, that’s not enough story for an episode. And really, what would be accomplished by wiping out one techno-loving van driver? Which is why tonight’s story focused on Gideon Stone, an ex SAS member who is trafficking heroin on a massive scale. Nasty man. But things aren’t as simple with him as they first appear. Gideon is still in with the British establishment, supposedly acting against the Taliban in Afghanistan using the profits he makes from drugs. Which counts as a moral dilemma, at least to the stiff upper lipped goon who met up with him, and also knew the Scottish guy who runs the hit team. You could tell they were cut from a similar cloth: both wore leather gloves and seemingly never removed them. If I wore leather gloves when I went to the toilet, I’d be as wound up as the Scottish team leader.

The story was pretty good, complemented by some skilful camera work and credible performances, but I felt more work would have given it more impact. After being shot by Gideon, the team’s shooter gets all morose, and finding out he has a bullet in his shoulder that could lead to gangrene and his arm being removed does not do wonders for his state of mind. This was interesting stuff I’d not seen before: how a man of violence copes with violence against him. And I’d have liked to have found out more about it, but The Fixer is handicapped to some extent by being written for ITV, and every ad break is an act break too.

The consequence of that is you’ve only got twelve or however many minutes to move the action on and up to the next level, which really wasn’t enough to see our hero get his mojo back, decide he’s going to win the day, take that damned bullet out of his shoulder, and face Gideon down. The idea is fine, but I felt there just wasn’t enough time to convince us of it. You need to be with him when he’s at his worst to appreciate him at his best, and that process was sketched over.

A shame. The first series of The Fixer was quality stuff, and this is the first episode I’ve caught of the second series. There’s room on the schedules for a post watershed show that combines action with moral dilemmas and interesting characters, and at its best The Fixer delivers on every count. Let’s hope subsequent episodes of this series bring home the goods.