Waking the Dead

Waking the Dead is a police procedural television drama produced for broadcast on BBC One. The program tells the story of the work of the Cold Case Squad led by Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd (played by Trevor Eve) who attempts to solve a variety of complex and intriguing crimes from the past with the help of Dr Grace Foley (Sue Johnston), a psychological profiler, as well as Frankie Wharton (Holly Aird), a forensic pathologist, and a number of detectives - including D.C. Mel Silver (Claire Goose) and D.S. Spencer Jordan (Wil Johnson). In later series, the forensic pathologist has been replaced by Eve Lockhart (Tara Fitzgerald), and the team adds D.S. Stella Goodman (Felicite Du Jeu). The main character, Boyd, is plagued by anger and stress problems and his dialogue expresses considerable cynicism and irony. Much of this stems from the death of his son.

The show premiered on September 4, 2000, and has now completed its eight series. It was created by Barbara Machin, produced by Victoria Fea and the executive producer was Alexei De Keyser. Waking the Dead is known for avoiding scenes showing personal relationships or romance between members of the team, instead telling the story of each case. The dialogue used on the program is often fast-paced and with very rapid shifts in conversation between characters - to the point where the dialogue can be considered a stylistic trope of the program.