I have watched all of the seasons of Waking the Dead through Amazons rental service which saved me from so much disapointment from current TV offering at the moment!
I did not hook into this first time around put off by Trevor Eves wooden performances and the bleak 'basement' they all seem to spend so much time in .
However having watched them now I have good opinion of him and the group of actors who weave their charm and evoke concern and interest in what happens to them. Yes I did cry when one of them is killed.
The frailty and strengths of us humans is well explored and some challenging outcomes resolving in-justice in a couple of the episodes. Not always neat endings which gives it a realistic edge.
Tops for me is the Sue Johnson character and how brilliantly she plays this. Worth it for her alone.

Several things are already mentioned concerning Waking the Dead, the ongoing sublime series on Cold Cases with a stunning lead by Trevor Eve.
But there are no doubts whatsoever in my mind: this is one of the best television series ever. I agree with others that the story whereas showing dead bodies is concerned tends to be under the influence of the fast lane shorties from CSI and that the Boyd character is not everybody's cup of tea. But hey, that's part of the multi-layer stories, giving that great chemistry with Sue Johnston's Grace Fohley. They work magic on the screen. And when you add all the good things up, it is impossible not to enjoy this fully. I know we live in an age where viewers want to critize everything to dead, never content or excited enough in any way. Those people leave the cinema after watching Die Hard 4.0 and will say 'oh, well, there was not a lot of action was there?'
Stop doing that, it feels like brooding on criticism to be able to write a review. This morning I watched the episode 'Subterraneans'. I was glued to my chair for two hours, enjoying one of the best episodes ever. The acting, camera-work, the 'will-the-wife-realize' feeling, the parallel lines in story telling. It's sublime.
If you cannot enjoy this cold case supremacy (provided you like this sort of thing), nothing will work for you.

I have quite a collection of crime dramas DVDs, but if I had to vote, Waking the Dead would surely be somewhere at the top of the list. So there's the apple:

What I really like about British TV dramas (among other things) is that an episode lasts way more than 40 minutes, and 40 minutes is surely not enough to solve a crime properly. What I really like about DVDs (among other things) is that you can watch the whole episode at one go. It would be torture to wait 24 hours or even a week for the second half. Also, the discs are packed in a convenient manner, and subtitles are available. Waking the Dead has everything, that is necessary for a good drama, and even more forensics that CSI (I AM a fan of CSI Vegas). The plots are really interesting, and what's even better, different from each other. And the characters are not some "crime solving functions", but living and breathing human beings. Would you ever think of Trevor Eve doing things according to the script, when you see Boyd's totally natural and human reactions?

All said is valid for the first five episodes, also for the seasons 1-4. Sadly, there is a worm. The last episode "Cold Fusion". It's like an episode from some different series! OK, I admit, the plot is good, it keeps you like this: this one is the killer, no, that one is the killer, no, I was right at the beginning, no, I admit I was wrong... But then trouble starts. The episode has way too much "action", as if following some American examples, not necessarily the best ones. Worse, there's some stupid blabbering about the issues as serious as morality. And the worst thing is some totally stupid American-style sentimentality. Don't get me wrong, I'm not really against getting emotional, the issue is HOW and WHY you get emotional (and then, some real life tragedies DO NOT look even believable in a film). Just remember the very same Boyd in Anger Management: him, suffering, sitting petrified, silent for... well, long enough for me to think that my DVD player has stopped working. That was really moving, but NOT some stupid tearful and sentimental explanations of some stupid girl (who was far from being stupid just an episode ago), who made some stupid mistake.

That left me baffled a bit, now I'll have to watch again some other episode in order to improve impression, before I start waiting for season 6 on DVD, as I have seen none of it on TV. Let's hope that one failure is just one failure. I dare not take a star away because of this, as most of the other episodes (including seasons 1-4) are worth way more than five.

Waking the Dead is a series about a cold case unit dealing with previously unsolved crimes. This is an excellent platform for a crime story and the storylines throughout the entire series are, with a few exceptions, of very high quality. There are some detractors though. The production is problematic at times, the characters lack depth and I miss a touch of humour now and again.

What production is concerned, from series 3 onward the producers began to focus on mutilated bodies and gory details in close-up, the gorier the better. These close-ups are repeated several times throughout the episodes as flashbacks, often accompanied by loud audio in form of synthesized thunder or screams, probably to enhance the shock effect. They are indeed waking up the dead.

I believe much has been said about Boyd (Trevor Eve). It can be difficult as a viewer to adjust to his erratic, annoying and often childlike behaviour. But Trevor Eve is a fine actor with great presence, which to a certain extent compensates for that. Grace Foley (Sue Johnston) is the most developed character and she is the glue that binds this unit together. Spence (Wil Johnson) spends the entire series looking angry and sulking. It's a pity he is only allowed one single mode of expression. The newcomers Stella (F??licit?? De Jeu) and Felix (Esther Hall) look very promising and one can hope their characters are allowed to develop further in future series.

Series 5 opens with the episode "Towers of Silence", which I believe to be the weakest story so far. The ingredients are Indian burial rituals, a pharmaceutical fraud and a somewhat secret corporation. The storyline is banal and maybe that's why the producers have upped the gimmicks. This episode contains probably the highest frequency of gory details and repetitions of torture. It is unwatchable. With the next episode "Black Run" we are back on the track. It's a great story about an imprisoned ex-cop Eddie Vine that Boyd put away earlier. Eddie Vine is now dying and Boyd faces the question whether he was right to do so. Fine story, no gimmicks. "Subterraneans" is another great story, but it's marred by unnecessary repetitions of a locked-up person screaming his lungs out. In "Straw Dog" we follow a young Grace Foley assisting in the arrest of a murderer Tony Greene. Some 30 years later she is back in court giving evidence in Tony Greene's appeal. At the same time she receives a jar of fingers, which was Greene's trademark. Is there a copycat on the loose? In this episode we get an insight view of the life of young Grace Foley, which adds to her character. The flashbacks are meaningful and they are by no means disrupting the story. "Undertow" is perhaps the best episode in this series. Again we see flashbacks of killings, but as in the previous episode they make sense. There is a fine, natural flow in the story telling and the viewers are allowed to follow the cold case unit meticulously searching for the decisive evidence to nail suspected murderer Steven Hunt. It doesn't get better than this. The final episode is "Cold Fusion". Some 25 years ago Spence worked as a policeman at the Atomic Energy Commission. At that time he and his partner were the first on the scene where two anti-nuclear campaigners were killed, one of them with the face horribly mutilated. Now 25 years later the case is re-opened and new technology may reveal the actual murderer. Again a fine story, but it is hacked to pieces by repeated flashbacks of the mutilated face, which comes with no warning and accompanied by a loud audio part.

Waking the Dead is probably the series with the best storylines at the moment, but the use of superfluous gimmicks and one-dimensional characters may prevent it from becoming a true classic.

After the death of Mel Silvers at the end of Series Four, Series Five starts with the team trying to pick up the pieces and come to terms with her untimely demise. We are treated to a new Forensic expert, Felix(Ester Hall) who replaces Frankie (Holly Aird) who we are led to believe has gone back doing research. The introduction to DC Stella Goodman(Felicite De Jeu) in Black Run Episode 2 was worked well, trying to fit into the space that Mel left would be hard for anyone to fill and Spence (Wil Johnson)doesn't give her an easy time, but by Episode 4 its like she'd always been part of the team, though her loyalty is tested later on in the series. The stories are gripping as per usual, Boyd (Trevor Eve) is as amusing as ever with his dry often lose cannon approach to crime solving. Grace Foley (Sue Johnston) tries to be the calming influence as ever but her past comes back to haunted her in the episode Straw Dogs where we learn more of Grace's past. Overall Series Five is well worth the 5 stars given and long may the series continue can't wait for Series 6 to be released on dvd.