Have loved 'Taggart' (another show gotten into during my teenage years) for a long time, although the more deliberate and even grittier Taggart and Jardine periods to me are superior to Burke's. Although it was actually through watching the late afternoon reruns of the Burke period episodes (starting from "Compensation" right up to when the episodes became shorter, too short in my mind) at one point that got me hooked, the Taggart and Jardine episodes were actually seen a lot later.
'Taggart' was really running out of ideas by this point, and one can see signs of that in "Cold Reader". Didn't care for it all that much on first watch, and still am pretty indifferent to it on rewatch for pretty much the same reasons. By all means, "Cold Reader" is not one of the worst episodes of 'Taggart', it's no "Genesis" for example. There's just nothing however that stands out as mind blowing amazing and did have a lot of problems with the storytelling and the character writing of one character.
"Cold Reader" does have good things. It is typically slick-looking and it is good that the photography doesn't try to do too much stylistically, without being too clean looking. The grit has definitely not gone. The theme song is still memorable and has an appealing nostalgic vibe, as well as well suited to the tone of the show. The acting from all is good, with most of the regulars faring strongly and the supporting cast doing nicely despite being in quite standard roles.
Complete with a nice chemistry that is humorous in parts and intense in others.
However, "Cold Reader" is very predictable with an ending that to me was obvious far too early, knowing that much information and so vividly and exactly immediately made me suspicious of them being at least complicit. Have seen this premise before, in 'Law and Order: Special Victims Unit's' "Pure", which actually executed it much better as that episode had real creepiness and the truth about the perpetrator was shocking (both missing here). It made the episode feel very tired and bland as a result, and tired and bland are not good adjectives to describe one of the grittiest shows of its kind when in its prime.
Really did not care for the way Burke was written here, generally he had come on a long way since his first appearance but here his hostility is really overdone. Totally understood his point of view but he didn't need to be so unsubtle about it. Actually have felt that Alex Norton's acting came on a long way as the show progressed when he blended with the show better, but somehow he overdoes Burke's hostility, an example of exaggerated character flaws which can be an issue for me. The script has moments of levity and grit, but too many times it's fairly by the numbers. The music overall would have been perfect in the 80s and early 90s but by this point it was sounding ten plus years out of date, on top of that the music is not always very well placed.
Overall, rather mixed on this. 5/10.