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Is he mad, in a coma… or has Detective Sam Tyler really travelled back in time?
A detective chief inspector from 2006 is investigating a serial killer when he is knocked over by a speeding car. Waking up, he finds himself mysteriously transported back in time to 1973. Initially struggling to come to terms with his situation, he has to come to terms with the old-fashioned technology and attitude of the day, while figuring out how he came to be trapped in the past.
Tyler has visions of someone disrupting his life support system in 2006, and encounters who he thinks is the same assailant in 1973, running a gambling syndicate and protection racket. Recognising the man as a killer he failed to stop in the future, Tyler is prepared to go to any lengths to make sure his life is not threatened and the man doesn't kill his original victim.
After collecting a career safe breaker from prison for further questioning, Tyler, Ray, and Chris are attacked by armed men enabling the escape of the prisoner. Is a local gangster to blame, or was the crime actually arranged by Gene's old mentor? Meanwhile, Sam tries to discourage the first black detective in the department from doing an Uncle Tom act, as he will become Sam's mentor when he first joins the force.
The team receives a warning, claiming the IRA has planted a car bomb in Manchester. Sam realises the warning doesn't conform to IRA techniques. However, when Sam's knowledge backfires, nearly killing Ray, the department shuns his line of investigation to focus on an Irish socialist group. Meanwhile, Sam's visions of the future suggest he may have suffered brain damage, affecting his higher reasoning, due to him being in a coma for so long.
The body of a young woman is found on wasteland. The investigation takes the team to suburbia, where a local car dealer is throwing private parties, employing make-up girls from a local company to “help out” when the wife-swapping begins. Posing as married couple Tony and Cherie Blair, Sam and Annie infiltrate one of the parties, only to discover that it isn't as simple as they think.
The team investigates the abduction of a young woman and her daughter, who are being held prisoner by somebody who demands the release of a prisoner arrested on a murder charge a year ago. At the same time, Sam faces a life or death situation in 2006 when he thinks he has accidentally been given an overdose. As the deadline draws closer, Sam collapses into a deeper coma, leaving his colleagues to tackle the mystery on their own - albeit using some of his earlier suggestions.
As heroin hits the streets of Manchester for the first time, CID and DCI Hunt want culprits for the smuggling, the dealing and ensuing violence, which becomes difficult when Annie is kidnapped by the smugglers. As Sam tries to get to the source of the influx of this deadly drug, he finds himself intractably drawn to a beautiful young woman who was witness to a heroin-related shooting - and who, he later realises, is the future mother of his 2006 girlfriend. At the same time, Sam's 'visions' reveal that his girlfriend has decided to stop visiting him in hospital, as she can't keep waiting for him to wake up.
A water-tight court case fails to put away a local gangster. Unable to cope with a guilty man walking free, DCI Hunt turns to alcohol but soon finds himself in a spot of bother. When it appears as though Hunt may have killed someone, it's up to Sam, torn between Gene and his replacement - a DCI who actually uses Sam's modern police techniques and vocabulary - to help him out.
Sam learns that an operation is to be conducted upon him in 2006 to try and revive him from his coma. However, he believes that to return to the 21st century, he has to betray his colleagues in 1973 - but can he regard them as real or imaginary?
