British crime drama running from 2000 (pilot) to 2011. The ninth and final series recently finished broadcasting.

It follows the activities of the Metropolitan Police's fictional Cold Case Squad, led by Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd (Trevor Eve), a man who likes to YELL AT PEOPLE.

In each episode an old crime is discovered or rediscovered, sometimes because someone has been killed in the present day (if not, someone usually will be). The Cold Case Squad use modern forensic techniques to solve the unsolved cases. [[RabidCop Well, that and Peter Boyd shouting at the suspects.]]

The show contains dark subject matter and graphic scenes, which is why it is shown after the {{Watershed}}. "Contains scenes that some viewers may find disturbing" is there for a reason- this show is ''full'' of potential NightmareFuel.

Each story is 2 hours long (no ads), shown in two parts on consecutive days.

[[Characters/WakingTheDead More character info- Contains spoilers]].

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!!This show provides examples of:
* ActionGirl: Stella.
* AloneWithThePsycho: Grace, a rather old choice for this.
* BoundAndGagged: A female regular is tied up in ''three of the four'' stories of Season 8. In the other episode, it's a guest star [[spoiler: and the female regular is killed!]]
* BritishBrevity: Sure, it lasted nine seasons, but each of them only had eight or ten episodes (and each case covered two episodes!).
* DeadPersonImpersonation: [[spoiler: "Burned Out"]]
* DeliberatelyMonochrome: "Skin", with little splashes of red in during some scenes.
* DroppedABridgeOnHim: [[spoiler: Or rather her, with Stella Goodman's death by blood clot.]]
* EveryoneLooksSexierIfFrench: Stella is half-French and raised in that country.
* FairCop: DC Stella Goodman. A Frenchwoman whose usual (dyed) hair colour is red, she does look rather good in an armed officer uniform. Also Mel Spencer and Katrina Howard.
* FanDisservice
* ForensicDrama
* FlashBack: Sometimes to the point of overuse.
* HeyItsThatGuy: If you look carefully in ''Film/CasinoRoyale'', the actress who plays Stella Goodman makes a cameo as a news reporter (it's just after the Miami scene).
** Michelle Forbes of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' fame turned up in one story.
** So did stage actress KateFleetwood, who played Mary Cattermole in ''Film/HarryPotter''.
** Julian Glover (from ''IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade'') appears in "The Hardest Word" [[spoiler: as the killer]], and his co-star Michael Byrne appears in "In the Sight of the Lord" [[spoiler: also as the killer]].
* IWasQuiteALooker: Grace.
* TheLabRat: Eve Lockhart, with a collection of wonderful analysis tools that puts the CSIVerse to shame. Well, until [[CSINewYork the New York lot]] got that hologram corpse thing.
* MommyIssues: The killer in the pilot.
* MoodLighting
* TheProfiler: Grace.
* RabidCop: Boyd by definition, but Goodman gets deliberately used in this role on occasions.
* RaisedCatholic: Boyd and Grace.
* RealisticDictionIsUnrealistic: Averted through adlibbing and the style of direction.
* RetCon: In ThePilot, Boyd has a wife/partner and a young child, and Grace mentions having kids of her own. [[EverybodyIsSingle All of this was quickly dropped when the show was picked up for the first series.]]
* ShellShockedVeteran: The victim in "Burned Out" was a soldier that came a bit touched from TheFalklandsWar, then became a war reporter and went full over the edge after covering TheYugoslavWars.
* WesternTerrorists: [[spoiler: "Missing Persons"]]
* WhamEpisode: The fourth season finale, "Shadowplay", in which [[spoiler: we have the sudden, violent, gory death of one of the [[KilledOffForReal main characters]]]].
* ViewersAreGoldfish: About half of "Missing Persons" is made of flashbacks.
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