BlackJack Season 1, Episode 6: At The Gates

Murder Archive

Justice means more than punishing those who commit crimes. It means never giving up in the search for the truth. Justice is Detective Jack Kempson’s creed. Jack Kempson started out as an idealistic cop. Thirty years on, he remains relentless in tracking down villains, but has lost confidence in his moral barometer. He turns a blind eye to the dubious methods employed by some of his contemporaries — prepared to let dodgy means be justified by the noble end. The police brotherhood has allowed him to survive all the crap that happens to him in his private life. But something is shifting in Jack and, when a quantity of drugs signed out in his name goes missing, Jack smells a rat and becomes a whistle blower — he just can’t accept the corruption anymore. This is his first big mistake, because the department turns its back on him, banishing him to the purgatory of supervising data entry into a new computerised crime tracking system. He is sent to rot in the basement. The system being established uses new technology to solve old cases. The data base is not yet complete, but allows Jack to work at what he loves best — solving crimes. Jack works outside the system — unauthorised work — but the crimes he digs up are still crying out to be solved. Jack is driven by the despair of the parents of a boy kidnapped and never found 30 years ago, and the memory of the loss of his wife. As he seeks to find answers from long ago, his journey into the past teaches him that he is not the man he thought he was.

90 min

Sweet Science

In 1992 a loving father was gunned down in front of his kids at their Saturday morning football game. The murder led to a series of underworld murders in what police assumed was a pay back killing. 12 years later, is it that the victim’s young sons witnessed their father's brutal death that they turn to crime themselves, or was it that the police did nothing to solve his murder? Jack is faced with a dilemma when he suspects the boys are involved in a string of daring robberies. He races to close the unsolved killing before the boys seek their own retribution.

90 min

In The Money

Years ago, an innocent mother was brutally murdered. Now her husband has just survived what appears to be an attempt on his life. Is someone really trying to kill him and if so why? Jack must investigate this latest crime — is it connected to the secrets flowing from Julia's death many years before? Jack battles with these issues and the possible involvement of his own father-in-law in the murder. Jack has an inkling the wrong man is in jail. Using the new Crimetrace photogrammetry technology for blood spatter analysis and advanced DNA testing, he sets out to right the wrong of the past and in the process makes himself very unpopular indeed. Set against the seedy background of the Greyhound racing industry, BlackJack - In the Money probes the secrets of a family torn apart many years ago. In doing so, Jack's daughter encourages him to reconnect with his own troubled family.

90 min

Ace Point Game

Two sisters kidnap the man they believe raped them years ago with the intention of taking revenge. As police pursue the women and their hostage, Kempson re-examines the old evidence to determine if the man they're holding prisoner really is the attacker—but also considers leaving him to his fate should he prove guilty. Alongside this Jack is forced to contend with the distancing relationship between himself and his daughter, and the repurcussions of sleeping with a work colleague. Will he finally get rid of his miserable and deviant boss, and be reinstated, or has he finally bitten off more than he can chew?

90 min

Dead Memory

A young woman goes missing when her car breaks down one rainy night. Her body is later discovered in a national park and for Detective Jack Kempson's offsider Sam, details of the crime mirror the disappearance of her friend Hannah, who vanished without trace some years ago. In Kempson's pursuit of the truth Sam is forced to face the sordid secrets of her past. Notes: Elizabeth Friels is Colin Friels' niece. Yvonne Strzechowski is the same actress who stars in the 2007 NBC series "Chuck" (but now named Yvonne Strahovski)

90 min

Ghosts

Nearly 20 years ago a young mother was shot during an apparent kidnapping and subsequent police chase. Now after all that time, the man in jail for the murder is about to be paroled. Jack has two missions - to bring the father and his daughter back together and to find out if any justice has been done by the conviction. Notes: Filmed in 2005 along with other two movies in the second trilogy, Network Ten kept Ghosts on the shelf until late 2007 before quietly slipping it in on a Sunday once the official ratings period was over. Liz's boyfriend Ian is played by Shaun Micallef, the co-creator of the Blackjack franchise and the writer of this movie.

90 min

Clinical Chart 8: Thoughts For Green

90 min

Clinical Chart 9: The Carbuncle

90 min

Clinical Chart 10: Sinking Woman

90 min