The Bill » Top 100 Episodes (In No Particular Order) » 17x06 - PC Smith
Smithy: So how would you have handled it? Nick: If I'd have been you, knowing the way that you think, I'd never have volunteered in the first place.
Probably one of the most iconic episodes from Smithy’s run as a PC, and my overall favourite episode from season 17, which is a season which doesn’t have that many memorable episodes for me as the show does start to lose steam quite quickly in the second half of the year.
A gay couple are in need of protection in the run up to a court case, and Debbie’s looking for volunteers. Nick’s the only one who put his hand up at this point, much to the amusement of everyone else. Bob later prompts Smithy into volunteering to show willingness ahead of his application for SO19, which is not treated any better by the rest of the relief. We’re now full swing into the run up of Smithy and Bob Cryer’s exits and there’s a lot of groundwork for both exits done in this ep. The scene between Bob and Tom Chandler is nice and tense, and I do enjoy just how unnerving early Tom could be.
The main plot of the episode on the most surface-level is much like 9x24 Trivial Pursuits in that the openly non-PC PC doesn’t handle the case involving gay guys well at first, but then does the work to save the day once he starts connecting with the victim as a person rather than just ‘a gay guy’. And like with Steve, this isn’t actually some grand revelation or pivotal change of direction for the character - both these men already know how to act like this and are fully capable of it, once they take the time to stop and think for a moment before opening their mouth to let their unfiltered thoughts come out
Another similarity to Steve, and one I don’t think is intentional at all but is inevitable, is the way Smithy’s attitude is contrasted to the rest of the relief. Like Steve, Smithy is brusque and openly intimidating, and so his actions and words are judged much more harshly than his peers who are, quite frankly, just as bad with the comments, jokes and dismissiveness. Like Steve, Smithy is the one labelled as the persistent problem despite some of the more ‘personable’ members of the relief regularly saying vile shit with no lasting repercussions and it's a language-vs-content issue that really hasn't improved over the years since, and the show actually gets worse with as time goes by.
Debbie is also not great, but that is fully intentional and her open self-serving nature really does give some substance to the character that is lacking with most of the post-Beech replacements at this point.
It’s also a solid episode for Nick, and even aside from the slashy moments (of which there are many) he really does feel like Nick here. It often feels like some of the writers really didn’t know what to do with the character and he occasionally ends up as a spineless little brat, but the spine is fully intact here and it plays against Smithy well.
Neil Daglish and Nick Patrick are both great as the main guest stars, and this episode really does show how much Nick Patrick was wasted when he returned as JT a few years down the line.
We also get a second appearance by Harry Towb as Frank Kennedy in the run up to his storyline in The Leopard, but more on that another time.
