Well, Fi and I were firmly of the opinion that he was a self-righteous little prick well before the ending. Which is why we sat screaming at the telly "Jump, you little git!" and "Run, Forrest, Run" (We're not that pleasant either, come to think of it!)

We even had the "Is Sam a psychopath" conversation the night we plotted That's Life... which was well before series two even started.

It's a difficult one to call. For the simple reason that the whole show is *his* fantasy Sam comes across as more self-absorbed than he probably is. But there are enough clues from his interactions with the characters in his fantasy (and real-life characters) to show that he is arrogant (he was conducting a romantic relationship with a direct subordinate and didn't see anything wrong with that), patronising (the whole Joni thing - white knight indeed), sexist (some of his conversations with Annie made me *cringe* - at least the rest of CID were sexist in a overt way) with a severe superiority complex (never mind his arguments with Gene over the difference in policing, asking Annie to *stay* the night before he betrayed them all... Ooooh, I'd've slapped him there and then.)

Is that enough for you?