Overview: The ninth series sees Detective Superintendent Boyd and his cold case team tackle their most challenging and personal cases to date. And also brings to an end a long-running TV series.

DVD Verdict: Back even before this lasts series was filmed, lead actor Trevor Eve (head officer Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd) had made it clear he was leaving the show as he wanted to pursue other TV options. Then the producers made it clear to the cast that without Eve the show couldn't go on and so this was to be the final season. I personally think that is complete and utter b/s as no show is one man, but especially a procedural like this that has such a rich, solid gathered crew.

Anyway, it has now gone and we are left with five (5) new episodes to watch, cherish and love. In 'Harbinger,' a small boy dies at a hospital in 1989, but are others dying needlessly also? In this very first new episode Boyd also gets handed a new team member - but of equal rank, DSI Sarah Cavendish. She's a high-flyer recently grounded by a hushed-up failed tactical operation. The car of a missing banker also shows up, but it's a mysterious black nurse and an old creepy couple that bring with it an ending that is wickedly good!

In 'Care,' a Christmas horror tale from 1986 comes full circle when a young girl is kidnapped. Next, a woman is discovered stabbed in the eyes and incinerated in her own car in a public parking lot. She is later identified as a neglected child who was taken into care, then later kidnapped back in 1986 at the age of seven. It's also the story of a kids darkest childhood nightmare game where if they are bad, see things they shouldn't a most horrid child-stealer named the Bag Man will come and kill you. The ending you can see coming, but the deaths along the way are truly the stuff of nightmares (young or old!)

In 'Solidarity,' the body of an army activist is found under a collapsed wall in London's sewer system in 1987 in the weeks leading up to a huge debates at Westminster. The focus of attention quickly settles on an activist faction discovered still operating - and to the man's one-time girlfriend, the Cold Case's very own Grace Foley. Come the end, Grace has to reveal her political background to the team, and also takes a bad tumble putting her in hospital.

In 'Conviction,' a young male body is found in 2005, the body cremated, but the paperwork lost. Something is wrong about the whole thing and Boyd suspects a cover-up. Now when a missing student's DNA matches with an unidentified corpse, he knows something is amiss. Suddenly we get the story of another young man converting to Islam and the whole episode turns the way of a possible terrorist story.

In the final episode of the season and series, 'Waterloo,' it's New Year's Eve 1959 and people are coming in and out of a cop station. Someone brought in is found dead in the cells the next day, but nobody seems to have been brought to justice all these years later. Add to this and the team investigates the disappearance of 16 homeless boys from Waterloo Bridge in the 1980s and Boyd getting the chance for "promotion" away from the team and this is a jam-packed final episode. That said, it never gets messy, the final tale is a VERY good, believable one, and their Cold Case squads final moments together are, well, just perfect. This is a Full Screen Presentation (1.85:1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs.