It's probably safe to assume that since we write a show called City Homicide that we know a bit about murder. Not through practical experience, mind, but we read a lot of newspapers. With every episode there's always research that needs to be done, whether it's about police procedures, weapons or how big a mess it would make if someone has a heart attack over an electric carving knife. For police procedures, our trusty advisor "Supertrooper" is always on hand to answer our questions... though we don't always follow her advice to the letter. Although accuracy is a goal, good drama is the priority. A prime example is interview scenes. In real life, detectives don't ask more than one question at a time because the answer to one question should inform the next question and so on. However, if we scripted dialogue like that, the show would grind down to a tedious shuffle rather than the spritely dash we try to pace it at. And Supertrooper gets that too. That's why she's super.

The Promised Land required more research than most episodes, mainly because it's pretty topical and we really wanted to get it right. In the early stages of scripting, everyone had their own sources that they were getting bits and pieces of info from to help shape the material. As more and more people became involved, such as costume designers, art department, actors and the Director, it became clear that we'd need one go-to guy who'd be able to give a uniform perspective on the research we needed. So we invited another advisor on board, someone who could give us accurate information regarding our portrayal of Islam and Islamic characters, the Iraqi family and their interactions with each other, and also costume and set dressing. We tracked down an extremely helpful advisor, let's call him "The Professor", who sat patiently while we grilled him on everything under the sun. And the more he taught us the more we realised that a lot of the questions we had weren't as straight forward as we first thought.

There's always a risk in doing a topical episode. Your audiences are likely to hold their opinions already and are unlikely to change their minds (for better or worse) based on one hour of television drama. Some stories will always court controversy but does that mean you shouldn't tell them? Our priorities at City Homicide are always: how do we tell a great story and how do we tell it so that the audience is entertained while we stay true to the characters and the world we've created? One of the reasons for doing our research thoroughly was so that our guest characters such as the Al Basri family and Sheik Al Laythi would ring as true as our police characters. And once the actors were cast, they also gave advice on wardrobe and brought in items from their own homes which gave the sets that added authenticity.

The subplot this week was our chance to bring Duncan back into the fold. He's had such a heavy time that we really wanted a case to just fall into his lap. Something that would provide an opportunity to start to mend that rift between Duncan and Stanley that opened up the night Claire died and Duncan rejected Stanley's offer to accompany him to the morgue. There's also something kinda neat about Nathan walking in at the end and just blurting out his role in planting the bomb and the guilt he's been feeling - like it's a relief to finally be caught after all these years. He's stepping out of a holding pattern. Kind of similar to how Duncan feels - such grief and anger can be like holding your breath. Sooner or later you have to let it out and get on with things. Clearing the way for Duncan to get back to working with his team is going to help him do that.

COMING UP: Guns. Gold. Big trucks. Big action. Armed Robbery's crazy Calabrese is back and you know what? He's still gunning for Simon. With so much trigger-happy action around someone's bound to catch a bullet...
The Creative Team, CITY HOMICIDE