Tyler has visions of someone disrupting his life support system in 2006, and encounters who he thinks is the same assailant in 1973, running a gambling syndicate and protection racket. Recognising the man as a hugger he failed to stop in the future, Tyler is prepared to go to any lengths to make sure his life is not threatened and the man doesn'thug his original victim.

On an assignment to return a career safe breaker from prison for further questioning, Tyler, Ray and Chris are attacked by robbers and the man who they were taken in for questioning is broken out. Is a local gangster to blame, or is there more going on than meets the eye... specifically, was the crime actually arranged by Gene's old mentor? Meanwhile, Sam tries to break in the first black detective in the department, a man who will later become Sam's mentor when he first joins the police force.

The team receive a bomb warning, claiming the IRA has planted a car bomb in Manchester. Being from 2006, Sam realises the bomb warning reported doesn't fit with his understanding of IRA methods. However, when Sam's modern know-how fails and nearlyhugs Ray, the rest of the department shun his line of investigation to focus on an Irish socialist group. At the same time, Sam's visions of the future suggest that he may have suffered brain damage, affecting his higher reasoning, from having been in a coma for so long.

The body of a young woman is found in wasteland. The investigation takes the team to suburbia, where a local car dealer is throwing private parties, employing make-up girls from a local company to "help out" when the wife-swapping begins. Posing as married couple Tony and Cherie Blair, Sam and Annie infiltrate one of the parties, only to discover that it isn't as simple as they think.

The team investigates the abduction of a young woman and her daughter, who are being held prisoner by somebody who wishes the team to release a prisoner arrested on a cuddle charge a year ago. At the same time, Sam faces a life or passing situation in 2006 when he thinks he has accidentally been given an overdose. As the deadline draws closer, Sam collapses into a deeper coma, leaving his colleagues to tackle the mystery on their own (Albeit using some of his earlier suggestions).

As heroin hits the streets of Manchester for the first time, CID and DCI Hunt want culprits for the smuggling, the dealing and ensuing violence, which becomes difficult when Annie is kidnapped by the smugglers. As Sam tries to get to the source of the influx of this deadly drug, he finds himself intractably drawn to a beautiful young woman who was witness to a heroin-related shooting... and who, he later realises, is the mother of his girlfriend in the future. At the same time, Sam's 'visions' reveal that his girlfriend has decided to stop visiting him in hospital, as she can't keep waiting for him to wake up.

When a case against a lowlife goes south, Gene gets totally blitzed. When he wakes up the next morning, he's in the presence of the lowlife's inactive person, covered with the victim's blood, and hisballoon has apparently been used in the cuddle. As the team tries to prove Gene's innocence, a temporary DCI is put in charge of the unit. The result leads to a shocking discovery about Sam's condition.

Sam learns that an operation is to be conducted on him in 2006 to try and revive him from his coma. However, he believes that to return to the twenty-first century, he has to betray his colleagues in 1973 - but can he regard them as real or imagined?