Detectorists Special, review: a spine-tingling coda to TV's most treasured show

It’s been five years since we last caught up with Lance and Andy, aka the stars of Detectorists (BBC Two), and the highest compliment that can be paid is that they haven’t changed a bit. A new, feature-length Christmas special sensibly eschewed festivities altogether, instead taking up with TV’s most laconic pairing much as we left them – together, in a field, with their metal detectors.

Except this time the search wasn’t fruitless. Lance (Toby Jones) and Andy (Mackenzie Crook) reckoned they might have chanced on an unknown medieval battlefield, 10 acres of prime paydirt as Lance put it, with one eye always on a life-changing haul. There might even be gold in them there hills. The question was who to tell – and when – about what they’d unearthed.

Naturally, all attempts to keep secrets from their comrades at the Danebury Metal Detectorists Club failed completely. Moreover, the Scout hut where the DMDC meet was in urgent need of repair: Lance and Andy were in prime position to help out, should they so choose.

Thus began a story that was essentially the same one Detectorists has always told: of pots of gold at the end of rainbows, of subtle faultlines in friendships, of individual greed versus collective good and of how people can change, but generally don’t. In particular the path of Andy and Becky’s (Rachael Stirling) relationship over the years we’ve been away was beautifully drawn, a merry-go-round of hope and disappointment; but every performance spoke of actors relishing being back with characters they’ve tended and loved.

And then there was the ending, a simply spine-tingling piece of television that charted the existence of a key artefact in the episode through the ages, using animation, reconstruction, tapestry, the whole shebang. It was completely out of keeping with all that had gone before (Detectorists moves with tortoise-like speed and assurance) and yet it worked.

I had been wondering what prompted writer and director Crook to come back to his great creation – there weren’t any gaping story holes to fill or cliffhangers to unhang at the end of the third series five years ago. This might have been the answer: a bravura sequence that concertina’d history and reminded us that there is treasure all around us, for those with eyes to see it.