Frost: Benefit of the Doubt Trivia Quiz

Answer: Train

Train sounds and visuals fill the screen as this 2001 "Benefit of the Doubt (Part One)" episode opens, and we see the remains of a woman dead on the train tracks. Apparently she was on the 2200 from London, and somehow fell or jumped off, confounding Detective Frost (Sir David Jason). No one reported her missing, and they can't find her handbag to identify her. Detective Jack Frost is shocked when a piece of the puzzle indicates murder.

The show is based on the novels of R.D. Wingfield. For 17 years Jason played the beloved sleuth, until he felt "too old" to be a believable gritty street copper. Born in 1940 David Jason was knighted in 2005 for service to drama and comedy.

Answer: Criminal ID line up

It's a fun surprise to realize Detective Frost is number four in a criminal identification line, as a pretty blonde examines each face from behind one-way glass. She decides Frost is not the perpetrator. That guy, she says, was better looking and smarter dressed.

It turns out a man dressed like Frost, pretending to be him, is detaining and then molesting local women. Frost calls this man a "dowdy clone of myself", but he doesn't take the crimes seriously.

Answer: She treats everyone with equal contempt

Senior surgeon Doctor Helena Gibson (Arkie Whiteley) is known for an abrupt and arrogant attitude, but her contempt singles out no one in particular, one surgeon tells another. She is angry and concerned because there is an internal investigation of her team for a mysterious string of post-surgery deaths.

Soon, there is a fifth! That brings in Detective Frost just as Dr. Gibson goes missing.

Answer: "I'm sorry it's been another year"

Kathleen Frost died of cancer some years back, but Detective Frost only visits her grave once a year. They weren't close, he tells a fellow copper. Still he apologizes for paying so little attention to her memory. He did bring very pretty flowers which he carefully arranges. Meanwhile viewers see a young blonde woman in the distance who appears to be following him, since we saw her earlier near his home. He glances her way but apparently, being preoccupied, makes nothing of it.

Sir David Jason did lose his wife of 18 years to breast cancer in 1995, a few years before this episode.

Answer: Shoves him out of a train's path

Terry Reid (Robert Glenister) is the new guy, assigned to Frost with a warning his past performance is lacking. Frost is unimpressed when he sees Reid smoking in a non-smoking area, then he's late, followed by getting drunk and disorderly at his own apartment. As they are on a case walking the train tracks Frost fails to hear a warning cry that a train is headed directly for him. Reid leaps in and shoves Frost to safety.

Not easily impressed, Frost later says he hopes just because Reid "saved my bacon" that doesn't mean things will go easy if he doesn't shape up, show up on time and be more help solving crimes. Curious, Frost calls in favors, breaks some rules, and digs up important facts about Reid.

Answer: Letter of resignation

Locked away in the office drawer of the missing surgeon Helena Gibson, Frost puzzles over a letter of resignation by her fellow surgeon Dr. Retnick. Frost seems to get a gut feeling Dr. Retnick (Frank Kovacs) is involved in Gibson's disappearance. He casually corners Dr. Retnick and asks some pointed questions, thereby realizing the doctor had no intention of resigning, that it was Dr. Gibson who wrote the letter. Is it possible Dr. Retnick was involved in the death of Dr. Gibson?

Answer: Her secret flat (apartment)

Now able to identify the victim from the items in her purse, Frost has a key but no lock, until they discover a secret flat (apartment) she had rented. On her desk inside are business papers, and a double bed recently shared. Frost realizes Mrs. Sylvia Carter had an affair going, and it was from this flat that she headed home, taking a short cut across the train tracks. Now he knows she wasn't a train passenger, this wasn't a suicide, she had secrets, and she was walking home along the tracks when she was killed. Perhaps with her lover? Ah, but she had more than one of those.

Answer: Incinerator

Frost was called to an abandoned disposal truck because of the stench, and found out the stinky trash had been dumped because the hospital incinerator had broken down. He was able to stop the most recent load of hospital trash from going into the repaired incinerator, revealing the surgeon Helena Gibson's body in the garbage. Frost arranged that the media announce the surgeon was "still missing" so the killer would believe he was in the clear.

Answer: His medal of honor

When Frost was tipped off that his new assistant Reid had been drunk and trashed his own place, Frost found among the piles Reid's Military Medal for gallantry and devotion to duty. Frost realized then that Reid struggles with PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) and that's why he had substance abuse problems and black marks on his performance record. Frost got Reid's history file "on the QT", and then had a heart-to-heart with him. Frost was adamant Reid ""not bring me down with you", but he was also compassionate, one of Frost's most endearing traits. Reid, a detective before he was busted down, turns out to be a skilled partner for Frost, besides saving his life at the train tracks. ("On the QT" means on the quiet, a British term from the mid 1880s.)

Answer: "I think you're my dad"

After a long day at work Frost returns to his construction zone house where he pours himself some tea doused with a lovely spot of liquor. He's just sitting down to enjoy it when there's a knock at the door. There stands the young blonde woman we saw shadowing him. She gets right to the point. "From what my mum told me, I think you're my dad". Episode ends!

In "Benefit of the Doubt (Part Two)" Frost spends time with this sweet person, Anne (played by Joanne Froggatt, later famous in "Downton Abbey"). She is the child of a long-ago girlfriend. Frost "warms up to the idea" he might be a late-in-life father. Indeed actor David Jason became a first-time father at age 61.