Radio Times

• Episode 1/21 Undaunted Mettle

  Noah Preston is obsessed with winning a competition to design the new building on the site of the former World Trade Center. But it's not to be - the talented young architect is found dead in Penn Station, with a stab wound to his neck. Goren and Eames investigate Preston's closest rival Benjamin Laurette for a connection to the murder, and are surprised to discover that Laurette is a bigamist.

  RT Choice (Jane Rackham, 4 February 2006)

  An intricate plot that's typical of the Law & Order franchise, it's slick and absorbing. Even so, this spin-off isn't an exceptional police drama.

• Episode 2/21 Gemini

  Murders at two separate opticians' are clearly connected. Eames believes both shootings were botched robberies but Goren suspects differently. He notices that an advert for tinted contact lenses - "Make your brown eyes blue" - was placed beside the bodies and is convinced the killer is trying to send a message. Further investigation, and another murder, hint at a racial motivation - and suggest that the killer may not be working alone.

  RT Choice (David Butcher, 11 February 2006)

  I love the way Law & Order whodunnits (or whydunnits) rattle along. This one starts with confusing teaser scenes and ends with one of those confrontations where Goren, the marvellous Vincent D'Onofrio, bounces a suspect into showing their cards.

• Episode 3/21 The Gift

  A young cameraman is found dead in the boot of his car, his throat slashed. Goren and Eames's investigation begins with the victim's mother - a highly strung heiress - her ambitious husband, and his beautiful business partner. But the case takes on a new significance when they discover that the body was left at a point equidistant from three churches, and that traces of animal blood were found in the victim's wounds. Bobby Cannavale guest-stars.

  RT Choice (David Butcher, 18 February 2006)

  Enjoy the usual pleasures of this series: brisk pacing, baroque plotlines and a turn from Vincent D'Onofrio as the all-knowing Detective Goren that verges on the Holmesian. It's not a first-rate episode, but it does involve a huckster getting his comeuppance in a psychic storyline that's a welcome antidote to dramas like Sea of Souls.

• Episode 4/21 But Not Forgotten

  Is a woman's disappearance connected to the murder of her brother on 9/11, the day of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center? And what's the source of the mysterious extra money he'd been earning? The case is murky - until the reappearance of the woman's missing dog leads to a chilling discovery. But even as Goren begins to unravel the complex tale, a final twist awaits.

  RT Choice (David Butcher, 25 February 2006)

  As ever, Goren gets the suspects in an interview room, then plays them like a violin until they fess up. Though even after the dénouement, you may find yourself muttering, "But who… what… why…?"

• Episode 5/21 Pravda

  Newspaper employee Katya Jalenak is found stabbed to death in the apartment of her lover, star reporter Carl Hines. Bishop - covering for the pregnant Eames - believes Katya was killed by a burglar, but Goren's not convinced. It emerges that Katya and Carl both had dark secrets - she had been struggling with debt, alcohol and drugs, while he was plagiarising and fabricating his stories. Does the newspaper's editor, Ben Elkins (Judd Hirsch), also have something to hide?

• Episode 6/21 Stray

  Two undercover detectives set up a weapons deal but are killed in a subsequent ambush. So are the criminals who were selling the "guns", which turn out to be fake. Another multiple homicide - at a makeshift "bank" for drug dealers - exhibits connections to the earlier killings and suggests to Goren that he is dealing with a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde. But who wears the trousers in this relationship?

• Episode 7/21 A Murderer Among Us

  Lena Brody is found locked in her bathroom, dead, with a shattered kneecap. Could her husband Lance really have killed her just because she threw out one of his prized model boats? Or did Lena commit suicide in an attempt to frame her abusive spouse? As Goren and Bishop delve deeper into the case, it appears that a traumatic event from Lance's childhood could shed light on events.

• Episode 8/21 Sound Bodies

  On a small Channel Island, a mass poisoning claims the lives of three people and leaves six others seriously ill. The victims were involved in a dispute over the local church, but they had one thing in common - they took sweetener in their coffee. Could the intended target have been the diabetic in the group? And how are the poisonings linked to the recent drowning of three teenage boys, and the sex parties they had been indulging in?

• Episode 9/21 Happy Family

  When wealthy family patriarch Russell Connors is bludgeoned to death with a hockey stick, Goren and Bishop must identify the culprit from among a motley collection of relatives. Was it Russell's estranged, terminally ill wife Paula? Her ex-con boyfriend Eddie? Her brother Ralph and his wife? The Romanian nanny? Or a suspicious aunt and uncle? Goren's only hope of finding the truth is to call a clan reunion.

• Episode 10/21 FPS

  Cash machines and computers are going berserk, causing bank accounts to be drained. When a computer whiz kid working for a network of hi-tech fraudsters is pushed off a balcony, the case seems relatively straightforward. But what's the connection to an online computer game, the game's creator, his business partner and the latter's wife? Meanwhile, Eames becomes a mother.

  RT Choice (Jane Rackham, 8 April 2006)

  If you're a technophobe, you'll have to concentrate very, very hard on this episode for it to make any sense at all.

• Episode 11/21 Mad Hops

  Why was private detective Diego Bracho so intent on finding missing high-school basketball star Corey Fergin? Why did no-one want to help the PI? And why has he now been murdered? Corey's parents are worried he might be taking after his brother, who's in jail for selling drugs. But Goren and Bishop uncover a link to a sports betting ring. And then Corey is found - floating in the river.

• Episode 12/21 Unrequited

  Since her husband's death, 60-year-old Marion Whitney has had a new lease of life. She's become a successful fundraiser and is taking acting and dancing lessons in pursuit of her long-held dream of breaking into showbusiness. Then Goren and Eames receive an anonymous letter suggesting that Marion's husband James may not have died of natural causes. His body is exhumed and a second autopsy reveals he was poisoned.

• Episode 13/21 Pas de Deux

  A deranged bank robber is enticing ordinary people into acting as his partners in crime. His latest accomplice Ernie wears a fake bomb around his neck in order to persuade bank staff to hand over their cash. But what does it mean when, on their latest heist, the bomb explodes, blowing Ernie to pieces? Donny's next accomplice is bored housewife Margie. What will be her fate?

• Episode 14/21 Mislabeled

  After meeting with an old college friend, pharmaceutical sales manager Clayton Sherwood heads off to a reconciliation with his estranged wife. He never makes it. Clayton's body is found hacked in two and packed into a crate bound for Bangkok. Goren and Eames uncover a nefarious plot to ship tainted blood medication to Thailand for massive profits. But was this at the root of the brutal murder?

• Episode 15/21 Shrinkwrapped

  Student Christian Lyle is infatuated with his married therapist Eloise Barnes. After bursting into her birthday dinner - and being swiftly thrown out - Christian is found dead, his face burned with acid and his lower body a mass of stab wounds. Suspicion falls on Eloise's psychologist husband Graham - who has a history of threatening behaviour - until their daughter Camilla seems, subtly but deliberately, to be attempting to further incriminate her father.

• Episode 16/21 The Saint

  Louise Politano is an advocate of the Brother Jerome Foundation - a Christian organisation that looks after sick children - and claims she was cured of childhood polio by the late Brother Jerome himself. After Louise is killed by an exploding parcel, Goren discovers a note she wrote as a teenager, confessing to faking the polio. If her cure is discredited it could threaten the foundation's bid to have Jerome canonised.

• Episode 17/21 Conscience

  One night, after arguing with her research associate, neurologist Dr Anna Ford drowns at her local pool. It turns out the usually strong swimmer was poisoned by a mixture of painkillers and chemicals added to her swimming gloves. Dr Ford had been about to testify as an expert witness in a "right-to-die" case, the outcome of which had implications - financial and otherwise - for several members of the patient's family.

• Episode 18/21 Ill-Bred

  The night before a prestigious showjumping competition, vet Molly Simms is found dead in a stable. She's the victim of a bloodbath that also involved the slaughter of two thoroughbreds belonging to Dr Neil McClintock, a less-than-popular new addition to the showjumping scene. Goren believes the butchering of the horses was a cover for the murder. Molly knew something that cost her her life. But what?

• Episode 19/21 Fico di Capo

  When undercover cop Geraldo Perez tries to pin the murder of a state witness on the Damiano crime family, his wife Nina's cover is blown and she's stabbed. Investigating the case, Goren and Eames uncover a gangster ménage-à-trois, and enlist the help of the dying head of the Damiano family to find out which of the three young men is responsible for the attacks.

• Episode 20/21 DAW

  Following the sudden death of their 66-year-old mother, Danielle and Janette argue over a valuable missing ring. Danielle suspects Janette's fiancé of having taken it but just after she's reported the theft to the police, Danielle is run over and killed. As their investigation proceeds, Goren and Eames become increasingly convinced that the elderly lady's doctor, Edwin Lingard, was involved in her death, and that they could be dealing with a ruthless serial killer.

• Episode 21/21 Consumed

  Policeman Tommy Callaghan finds himself in a subway tunnel with an empty gun, a broken leg and no memory of the evening's events. A man named Eddie Murcado was murdered that night and Goren and Eames are convinced Tommy's the killer - until a search of the dead man's apartment unearths new clues. What's the connection between Eddie's numerous cruise trips, Tommy's recent strange behaviour, his suspiciously helpful neighbour, and her incarcerated ex-husband?

  RT Choice (Simon Holden, 24 June 2006)

  In the season-three finale the team is called in to solve a triple murder, and it looks like a sleepwalking cop may be responsible. This may be far-fetched, but that doesn't matter because just keeping up with the plot requires concentration and one overlooks nit-picking points. So before you've had time to admire any of actor Vincent D'Onofrio's habitual pregnant pauses, Goren and Eames are opening up a piano and looking for drugs.

  This tale of cold-hearted revenge is compelling, but it's compressed into just one hour and the clues emerge faster than bullets from a machine gun.

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