The first four seasons were fantastic, but season five was simply dreadful. The difference between the good and the bad and ugly boils down to the characters. The series regulars during the first four seasons not only had a kind of likeable humanity, but they also shared a sense of humor and a wonderful chemistry that was lost in the season five resurrection. Of course, the writers had to deal with the loss of the Nicola Walker character. Yes, they had to introduce a "complex" Nichola Walker replacement. Yes, they had to come up with a socially relevant tangled up mix of characters that would justify six episodes to untangle. Yes, yes, yes. But what drudgery! The whole product was overdone, needlessly complex, contained unnecessary characters, and was utterly humorless. I grimaced my way through to the end because I had found that the previous four seasons had resolved the Byzantine plots in a more-or-less satisfying way. Not so with season five. A lot was left unresolved, and it was impossible to recall who half of the characters were without a study guide. In the end the police got half of it wrong because the drug addict and street criminal grandson lied to them. But of course, all that was justified because Lord Tony Hume was, well, "privileged" and they weren't. The message is this: if you can't come up with a decent plot, just make your characters victims of Britain's colonial- era past and that will justify anything. What garbage!