After a hostage rescue goes wrong, superintendent Sandra Pullman is put in charge of unsolved crimes. With little resources and no back-up she decides to recruit three ex policeman. However times have changed, unlike her new recruits. Jack Halford is yet to get over the loss of his wife, Brian Lane is over obsessed and over medicated, and Gerry Standing is not quite the ladies man he used to be. They may have the experience but it's not like the old days. Not only are they chasing criminals, but they are having to deal with a new police force which does not always appreciate their old style policing.

James Bolam, Alun Armstong, and Dennis Waterman are old dogs trying to learn some new tricks. The veteran actors team up in this new police drama playing retired detectives with wildly different personalities who are recalled to duty to form a special unit investigating unsolved crimes. However, their tried-and-tested ways of solving crimes don't always mesh with 21st-century policing. Amanda Redman also stars as the unit's reluctant commander, assigned to the team after an embarrassing incident halted her ambitious career plans. Needing to redeem herself in the eyes of her superiors, she runs a tight ship -- and that leads to clashes with the very unconventional older trio whom she commands.

Brian Lane, Jack Halford and Gerry Standing may be eccentric, ignore procedure, bend the rules and take risks, but they get results. Series 8 sees them opening the files on the death of a senior palaeontologist at the Natural History Musuem, the hit and run of a cycle courier, the murder of a vagrant on a tube train, a missing scientist who disappeared on the London to Paris Eurostar and the murder of the leader of a notorious criminal biker gang. Among the guest stars appearing in the series are Sheila Hancock, Keith Allen, Peter Davison, Tim McInnerny, Rebecca Front, Sally Phillips, Paul McGann, Shaun Williamson and Emily Glenister. The team also face their own personal dilemmas with Brian suspecting wife Esther of having an affair, Sandra questioning her role at UCOS, Jack struggling to deal with his own emotions during the hit and run case and Gerry back on the dating scene -older, but not wiser.

Detective Superintendent Sandra Pullman heads The Unsolved Crime and Open Case Squad (UCOS), cracking previously unsolved crimes from the past. Her team are ex policemen who have opted for early retirement. In series nine Jack Halford deals a devastating blow to UCOS - he's quitting. But before the team can question the reasons behind his decision and persuade him to stay, shadowy Whitehall Intelligence figure Stephen Fisher arrives with one of his secret cases, the unsolved murder of a woman dating back 100 years. UCOS have just 24 hours to solve it.

After a hostage rescue goes wrong, superintendent Sandra Pullman is put in charge of unsolved crimes. With little resources and no back-up she decides to recruit three ex policeman. However times have changed, unlike her new recruits. Jack Halford is yet to get over the loss of his wife, Brian Lane is over obsessed and over medicated, and Gerry Standing is not quite the ladies man he used to be. They may have the experience but it's not like the old days. Not only are they chasing criminals, but they are having to deal with a new police force which does not always appreciate their old style policing.

There is now only one left of the original Unsolved Crime and Open Case Squad: Gerry Standing, portrayed by Dennis Waterman. The rest of the team have changed – even the leader, the ambitious DS Sandra Pullman (Amanda Redman), left in the last series, replaced by DCI Sasha Miller, played by Tamzin Outhwaite. The other squad members are Steve McAndrew (Denis Lawson) and Dan Griffin (Nicholas Lyndhurst).