'Taggart' was a great show during the Taggart era, gritty and always compelling. When Jardine was in charge, it remained very good to start with and Jardine was a worthy replacement for Taggart (after Mark McManus' ultimely death), but the second half of the period was more variable. While the Burke period had good and more episodes, it wasn't the same at the same time, did get the sense that the show had run out of ideas and became tired.
"New Life" continues the improvement seen in "Blood Money", an episode that saw the team gel more, something that needed to happen but didn't quite in the previous Burke-period episodes, and Burke grated on me much less. "New Life" is an interesting episode for being one of not many 'Taggart' episodes to have a low body count, in this case only one murder whereas many have at least two. It is not a great episode but it is a pretty good one.
It did get over-complicated at times, with a few too many twists and turns in a short space of time. Didn't really buy the motive, the identity of the murderer actually was a shock (spent most of the episode convinced it was someone else), for me it was the most surprising reveal of the show for some time. The method of killing was also clever, not to mention brutal.
For me though, the other suspects', and with there being a lot of them it made it less easy to figure out the truth, motives were more buyable (if cliched) and they came over as having more to lose. This was a they killed for that sort of motive revealed too much at near-last minute. Personal opinion of course.
On the other hand, the production values have the necessary grit and moodiness and Glasgow is like its own character. The moodiness is present in the music and the main theme as always is unforgettable. The improved and increased chemistry and teamwork within the team is here too and am continuing to have less of a problem with Burke, who now gels better and is less of a bully.
Regarding the script, that's intriguing and there's more bite and dryness that were missing in the previous Burke-era episodes. The twists and turns did surprise and the denouement as said mostly left me stumped, if the motive was more believable it would have been completely that. The acting is good, Blythe Duff is a major main reason to stick with the latter episodes and that hasn't changed.
Altogether, pretty good. 7/10