Ashes to Ashes II Episode Six on BBC One

You'll be pleased to know that the Alex Drake (Keeley Hawes) in the twenty-first century has finally made it to an operating theatre and has had the operation on that bullet lodged in her brain. About time too. It's only taken a series and a half to get her there.

That's the important thread running behind the sixth Ashes to Ashes episode, which features a scam along the lines of the Darwin couple last year – but with more murder for Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister) and CID to get their teeth into. Sam Spruell's snide Trevor Riley is a loan shark 'taking advantage of the current economic climate' and having his boys administer beatings as and when necessary. What's odd is how lightly those boys are let off by Hunt, especially after their encounter with the DCI in a dark street.

The reference to the economic climate and the life insurance scam make Ashes to Ashes seem very prescient this week, as if Luigi's (Joseph Long) reminder to Hunt that 'Debt is bad' weren't enough. Okay, so Hunt's a bit wide of the mark when he talks about flying cars in the twenty-first century, but you can forgive the odd slip from a man quite so brilliant as Hunt.

He has a lot of fun this week in a scrap yard – in the best scene of a fairly routine episode. It's certainly a novel interrogation technique he has, and – with the interviewee being entirely innocent (of the crime he's being asked about) – you've got to wonder about ends and means, once again.

Frankly, it's a disappointing sixth episode. Here's hoping next week the game is picked back up.