Saturday 11 January
To recap: our intrepid time time travellers have given an emphatic thumbs-down to Dalek hospitality by undressing one of their hosts and chucking him (it?) in a corner. Next, it's a futuristic spin on the classic dressing-up-as-a-Nazi routine as Ian clambers into Dalek drag and mounts an escape attempt with his companions in tow. It's not long before they encounter one of the genuine mutants, who Ian manages to half-convince with his story of taking the prisoners to see "the council". Either this is a thumping good guess about how the Dalek city is governed, or he's been told about it off-screen (perhaps the Dalek who brought the tea liked to have a rant about parking charges and inconsistent bin collections). Sensing that the Dalek's not entirely convinced, Susan goes off on one of her patented hysterical fits (I love her little wink to her chums to show she's pretending - we could do with seeing more of this cheeky side).
The Dalek lets the travellers pass, but there are others who manage to see straight through the ruse. As our heroes reach the lift which could mean their escape from the city the floor beneath Ian's metal casing is magnetised so he can't move, and what's more his lid can't be budged.
With the Daleks burning their way in, Ian insists the others go up in the lift without him.
Soon the Daleks are in, and turn their firepower on the stolen capsule. Its destruction looks highly impressive, but it turns out to be empty, Ian having got out and into the lift just in time.
High up in the building the travellers can see right across the city, and they notice the Thals heading to meet the Daleks in response to the invitation Susan signed last week. Having by this time all decided that the Daleks are an unequivocally bad lot, the Doctor's certain the Thals must be walking into a trap. Thanks to the Daleks' mastery of soundproofing, he and his friends' attempt to warn the Thals is not a success - on the plus side, it does look absolutely hilarious.
The party turn their attention back to saving themselves - with the Daleks ascending in the lift, what can stop them? Well how about a convenient abstract sculpture, dropped down the lift shaft? Plaudits must go to William Russell, Jacqueline Hill and Carole Ann Ford's attempts at making it look like this big chunk of polystyrene is really, really heavy.
The sculpture (sculpture? Whatever are the Daleks doing with a sculpture?) puts the lift out of action, giving Barbara, Susan and the Doctor time to escape. Ian valiantly volunteers to stay behind and warn the Thals of their impending doom. Alydon, having heard about the Daleks from Susan, wionders if they might not be as chummy as all that, but Temmosus berates him for suspecting their neighbours of anything other than the best intentions.
Just how bad the Daleks' intentions are becomes apparent in a spectacularly tense scene with the Thals entering the city, the machine-clad mutants hiding in the shadows. The Dalek prop, so often used out of context for comic effect, has never been as genuinely scary as here, with a close-up of a Dalek's middle section showing its gun twitching in anticipation of the Thals' advance, as if licking its lips.
...it's a moment even the comical appearance of the blond-wigged actors portraying the Thals can't spoil (perfectly-coiffed Philip Bond is not wearing a wig for the role of Ganatus, which rather makes everyone else's look more obvious).
Temmosus makes a grandstanding speech about the historic significance of the Daleks and Thals coming together in friendship, and then they're upon him, the idealistic Thal leader becoming the first person we ever see exterminated by a Dalek.
Ian's warning comes at almost the exact moment the Daleks open fire. It's too late for Temmosus, but it helps to avoid a wholesale slaughter as he and the remaining Thals rapidly flee. The effect of a metal wall warping under a Dalek's firepower as it misses Ian is thrilling stuff.
Alydon, unable to get away for the moment, disguises himself as one of the Daleks' beloved sculptures.
The camera's grim survey of the carnage wrought by the Daleks is somewhat undermined by the humour to be had from the sight of a bloke in PVC trousers prone over a table with his bum in the air (who hasn't been to a party like this?). The sight of what appears to be a stack of loo rolls among the spread laid out for the Thals also invites speculation about the Daleks' lavatorial habits that it's probably best not to dwell on.
While Ian's been caught up in the above rigmarole, his companions have been having a lovely time in the jungle with the Thals who stayed behind (they seem to have made the TARDIS the focal point of their camp). The Doctor's absorbed in a collection of historical records that stretches back half a million years and tells the tale of how the Daleks and Thals came to be where they are today.
This includes pictures of what the Thals and the Daleks looked like before the nuclear disaster that left Skaro in its current state. Ian marvels at "the original Dalek" but what it looks like is kept from us, just the same as with its latter-day descendant.
Ian has a chat with the survivors of the Dalek attack, and is astonished to find that they have no intention of fighting back. They're so against the notion of fighting (in fact, they're quite aggressive about how much they don't want to fight), that even if the Daleks managed to leave their city and invade the Thal encampment they'd just run away (come to think of it, considering the Daleks have powerful weapons and they don't that just seems like common sense). Ian tries to convince them to stick up for themselves (I wonder if he filled in for the PE teacher occasionally), but the Doctor convinces him it's not really their problem. They'll be off and leave the Thals to their own devices...
...except they don't have that all-important fluid link that took them to the city in the first place, the Daleks having taken it from Ian when they questioned him. Without it, the travellers will be stuck on Skaro forever. That'll teach you not to carry a spare, Doctor...
The Ambush is perhaps the most thrilling 25 minutes I've yet featured here. In the last few weeks Doctor Who's got over the dip inevitably brought about by three weeks of cross cavemen into the adventure serial par excellence, and it's easy to see why by this point the show, and in particular its current antagonists, were exercising such a grip on the imaginations of Britain's children.
The attitude of the nation's children to tonight's next show has not gone down in history, though it was popular enough with their elders to keep it running for a good few years.
Tonight's Sergeant Cork gets off to an alarming start with the sight of a semi-clad Edward Woodward. He appears in the role of Austin Carew, a radical politician having it away with Lady Emily Ormsby (Sally Home), wife of a political opponent.
Her husband's arrival is imminent, and as Austin sneaks out of her room he's seen by the clearly very upset Kate Carstairs (Diane Clare).
Next thing we know, Sergeant Cork and Bob Marriott are summoned to investigate the theft of the famed Ormsby diamonds. It's an old-fashioned country house mystery, which means Cork gets plenty of opportunity to vent his dislike of the upper classes ("It is customary for gentlemen to knock", Lady Ormsby huffs at one point as he barges his way into a room. "You should know by now, Ma'am", he responds, "That I am a policeman"). The Case of the Ormsby Diamonds lacks the searing social comment of similar previous episodes, but benefits greatly from the characteristically urbane dialogue of Julian Bond, which the superb cast deliver at almost His Girl Friday speed.
The suspects: Sir Geoffrey Ormsby (Noel Johnson) himself - could he be after the insurance money for the diamonds?; Sir Geoffrey's dull-witted brother Evelyn (Hugh Latimer), dominated by his shrewish wife Dora (Madi Hedd), who's consumed with jealousy of the brother who inherited all the family's loot; Lady Ormsby, Austin Carew and Miss Carstairs.
Latimer and Hedd are especially great as the poor relations; the shot of a disconsolate Evelyn seeking comfort from a lookalike bloodhound really deserves to be a greetings card.
Halfway through, the wonderful Geoffrey Bayldon pops up as Mr Menzies, insurance investigator, handwriting expert and autograph hunter, also on the trail of the diamonds ("M-e-n-z-i-e-s Mingis", he tortuously explains. "C-o-r-k Cork!" barks the short-tempered detective). He's a great character who deserves to be used again in future episodes.
After receiving an anonymous note telling him to arrest Cardew, Cork heads to the politician's rooms, where he discovers a left luggage ticket for the station near the Ormsby residence. Upon investigation the case in question turns out to contain the diamonds.
Mr Menzies identifies the left luggage ticket as being in the same hand that wrote the note to Cork, suggesting an attempt to frame Cardew. The sergeant dispatches his constable to interview the man who can provide an alibi for Sir Geoffrey: the Prime Minister, with whom Ormsby dined on the night of the theft. "Remember, he is a public servant!", Cork instructs a terrified Marriott. Menzies seizes the opportunity to get a gem for his, ahem, son's autograph collection.
Eventually Sir Geoffrey's revealed as the culprit, having lied about the time he returned home from his date with the PM. Having walked in on his wife and her lover asleep, he framed Cardew as revenge. As he confesses the camera slowly homes in on Noel Johnson's face till it's uncomfortably close.
A fun episode, if not a particularly memorable one.
Next tonight, The Arthur Haynes Show - clearly very much assured of its popularity at this stage, it no longer features any opening theme, relying on the applause of a wildly enthusiastic studio audience over a brief animated title.
Tonight's opening sketch is very much Haynes-by-numbers, relying on the well-established setup of Arthur annoying Nicholas Parsons in a train carriage: "You buy a first class ticket but it doesn't stop people getting bothered, does it? Does it?"
Parsons is a surgeon, on his way to an important operation. Arthur tries to draw him into conversation about Your Life in Their Hands, a documentary series showing what happens in the operating theatre. Nicholas hasn't been on it. "Why? Aren't you good enough?" Arthur's baffled by the fact that the surgeons on the show keep their masks on throughout. "He's not gonna get famous that way, is he?" It's not long before Parsons is reduced to a gibbering wreck.
To make things worse, Arthur strips off in the hope of getting an examination. He's puzzled by Parsons' refusal: "What's the matter, are you afraid you ain't gonna get your money? I'm fully paid up on the National Health!"
While we reel from the sight of a topless Arthur Haynes we move on to a brief vignette with Arthur as a policeman knocking on Parsons' door, after being involved in some kind of fight. After downing several brandies proffered by his host he announces he's there to talk to him about his dangerous dog. It's pretty weak, but what makes the sketch interesting is how it links to the show's musical act by panning across Parsons' desk.
An unusually current act for the show to feature, at the time of broadcast the Dave Clark Five were at number 2 in the hit parade with "Glad All Over," which they mime to here alongside their previous hit, a cover of the Contours' "Do You Love Me". Drummer Dave Clark takes centre stage, which in a way is fair enough, as the group's named after him and he's by far the prettiest. On the other hand, having the lead singer, keyboardist Mike Smith, off at the corner of the stage is a bit disorientating.
Lastly we visit the police station in the company of tramps Arthur and Dermot, who've come to report the theft of their hard-earned fourpence (Arthur earned it by singing and dancing in the town centre to the gramophone they keep in their pram for eight hours). The best thing about a visit to a police station in any 60s TV show is always the posters, and there's a great pair here, aimed at cyclists and dog owners.
Downright odd to 21st century eyes is the sight of Dermot blithely having a fag in a police station (note also that the wall calendar shows the date of the show's transmission).
Arthur's deeply offended by Sergeant Parsons' lack of interest in his missing money. It's all down to prejudice against the poor, of course: the police didn't waste any time trying to track down the great train robbers, and the loss of fourpence is just as significant to Arthur as the loss of £4,000,000 is to the banks. More so, in fact: he can't just print more money like they can. Haynes and Parsons manage to crack each other up over Arthur's temporary inability to pronounce "CID".
Finally Parsons is convinced into sending a man down to the mission hall where the money was stolen after Dermot recognises a Wanted photo of one of the great train robbers. He recognises that fella: it was him that stole the fourpence. Parsons gives them a pound to make them go away (if they really had shopped one of the great train robbers you'd think they might get a more significant reward than that), and they grudgingly leave the station. Outside, Dermot realises it wasn't the mission hall he recognised the bloke in the picture from, it was the picture of him outside the station. Oh well...
At one point during the sketch, Parsons asks Arthur if he's informed the vicar of the theft. Arthur vents his exasperation at what's become of the clergy: "I asked him to put a curse on him, and he wouldn't do it!" He might have been better off consulting one of the priests in our next programme...
The Bishop of Winnipeg (David Bauer) is in London, with his ever-present attendant Sister Johnson (Lois Maxwell). Not at all a well man, he pays a visit to eminent Harley Street physician Mr Beardmore (Tony Steedman), to find out how long he's got left. The bishop begins to disrobe prior to examination... but why, exactly, is he carrying a gun?
The answer to this question is swiftly revealed by John Steed. The bishop is not a real bishop at all, but the head of Bibliotec, a "commonwealth Mafia" who many years ago hit on an ecclesiastical front as a good way to divert the suspicions of customs officers. It doesn't always work, as in the case of the Reverend Harbottle, a senior member of the organisation who's been nabbed on entering the UK: Steed's summoned Cathy to the airport to help out. The vicar's collar is kept in a box concealing a round of ammunition, while the gun itself is hidden in a prayerbook.
They also discover a doll, which Cathy (she used to collect them) identifies as a rare and valuable German antique. Its head's loose, which Steed encourages Cathy to have seen to.
A doll's hospital, with tiny body parts strewn all over the place, is a guaranteed macabre setting. This one's made even more creepy by Laurence Bourne's direction, the otherworldly performance of Grayson Hall lookalike Rosemarie Dunham as its proprietor, Gerda, and hulking Frank Maher as Gerda's husband Hasek.
By accident or design, Cathy seems to have brought her doll to people who know just what to do with it: Gerda clearly recognises the doll as in some way significant, and once Cathy's left it with her, Hasek swiftly smashes its head in.
A little while later, Cathy finds Hasek in her flat, giving her drawers a good going through, though he runs off when she enters fight mode. Not long after that, she receives a phone call from Gerda, requesting £20,000 for the doll's repair.
Meanwhile, Bibliotec are holding a major conference - in a shabby school classroom during the holidays. Members from throughout the commonwealth are present. The joke is that these supposed clergymen (such as frequent Avengers guest star Kenneth J Warren as Fingers the Frog, vicar of Toowoomba) are, in contrast to the dignified bishop, obvious crooks, but as the point of the conference is to decide on the bishop's successor it does rather make you wonder how the organisation will carry on without him.
As Sister Johnson carries out the collection - of the assembled clerics' firearms, she's surprised by the entrance of a new gang member, Reverend John Steed - sent instead of the indisposed Reverend Harbottle.
Steed's a hit with his fellow clergymen, and in response to equestrian-themed chaffing about his surname from Reverend Harry (Harry Landis), makes up the rather alarming nickname for himself of Johnny the Horse. Harry passes him a native fertility symbol...
...which in a short while he whittles down to proportions he feels more comfortable with.
Steed meets up with Cathy to compare notes in the school's tuck shop, where he sucks on some brandy balls and she rather lasciviously gets to work on a sherbet fountain.
When she comes to see him later on, Harry and Big Sid (John Cowley) are present, so they pretend that she's his moll. And just to make things more convincing...
It looks like a straight fight between Big Sid and Fingers the Frog to replace the bishop, with Steed's support courted by the Big Sid camp. It all proves immaterial, though: while the Bibliotec members sleep in the classroom (the organisation's rules say they can't live outside the premises until the conference is over), the blackboard slides back to reveal a machine gun-wielding Sister Johnson, who mows them all down.
Steed survives (with an injured leg), and is patched up by Mr Beardmore, who's far from ignorant of the inner workings of Bibliotec. In fact, the doll's head turns out to have been full of microfilm containing secrets divulged by some of his more high profile clients. He and Sister Johnson (revealed to be the bishop's lover as well as his nurse) are now plotting to take over Bibliotec: hence the massacre (casting Miss Moneypenny as the would-be head of an international crime syndicate is an inspired touch).
The couple at the dolls' hospital are also involved in Sister Johnson's plans, as they reveal to Cathy after she finally gets the chance to beat up Hasek...
...as is Fingers, who escaped before the shooting but ends up shot dead by the bishop in a concluding bloodbath which also sees Steed dispatching Beardmore, and Cathy seriously wounding Sister Johnson. On being shot, Lois Maxwell totters all over the set in an entertaining but eventually exasperating manner that works as a metaphor for the episode itself. Excellent - and wonderfully bizarre - in parts, The Little Wonders finally suffers from being a seriously over-egged pudding.
Finally, something a bit more sober. Tonight's episode of Espionage is notable chiefly for being an early script by Larry Cohen, at this stage in his career a jobbing TV writer but destined to become one of the most distinctive voices in sci-fi and horror cinema of the 70s and 80s as writer-director of films like It's Alive, God Told Me To, Q - the Winged Serpent and The Stuff. There are no killer babies, Aztec gods or hermaphrodite alien messiahs here, but there's an uncomfortably thought-provoking piece of drama that seems to be heavily influenced by the moral nightmares of The Twilight Zone.
Fritz Weaver stars as Richard Keller, acclaimed author of The Germans, a book seeking to explain what it was in the psyche of the German people that led them into the clutches of Nazism. Having been resident in England since 1944, he's returned to his homeland to receive an honour for his anti-Nazi achievements during the war. But as he rehearses his big speech, paying tribute to the German people's resilience in recovering from the horrors of Nazism, a young man (Mark Petersen), the very image of the ideal Aryan youth, sneaks into the auditorium and shoots him.
At the bedside of the critically injured Keller, doctor explains to nurse who Keller is, and what he was due to be honoured for: betraying his country.
Apart from brief exchanges between doctor and nurse, the rest of the episode takes place in Keller's head, a maze of flashbacks within flashbacks. He remembers his journey to Germany by plane, where he hallucinated his recently deceased wife (Sylvia Kay) asking for his promise never to return to Germany, for his own peace of mind.
He remembers back to the war, when he was part of a top secret anti-Nazi contingent within the German high command, led by Field Marshal Von Elm (Joseph Furst), who chose him to carry the group's declaration of peace to England. And he remembers his recent visit to the elderly Von Elm, also a recipient of the medal he's come to have pinned to his chest, but now deeply embittered, and viewing the government's honouring of those who were on the "right side" as simply an attempt to distract from continuing war crimes trials. The makeup Furst sports as the older Von Elm doesn't make him look much older, but it does make him look badly scarred - a sign of the fate he suffered from staying behind in Germany when Keller took up residence in England.
As Keller briefly returns to consciousness the face of the nurse reminds him of his sister Ilsa (Rosemary Rogers) , who he's also paid a visit on this unhappy return home. As bitter in her own way as the Field Marshal, she didn't give him much of a welcome. He received a much warmer greeting from his bedridden mother (Catherine Lacey, one of my favourite actresses)...
...but the mood is soured by his mother's compulsion to reveal that after he left Germany, for the sake of Ilsa and her baby son, she denounced him to the Gestapo, accusing him of all sorts of terrible crimes: "I called you a degenerate. I cast doubt upon your manhood. I cited instances where you had corrupted young boys." Her testimony saw Keller sentenced to death: "You were convicted in absentia and I stood there and applauded the verdict." It's the immense mental strain resulting from this that keeps her bedridden, and she tells her son that the shame that consumes her means she's unable to attend his ceremony.
Reeling from all this, Keller is lambasted by his sister. Rather than guilt, she feels nothing but anger for the book her brother wrote condemning Germans trying to live their everyday lives as collaborators. She brings him face to face with the uncomfortable fact that those acquiescing to Nazi rule included his nearest and dearest: "You remember the Jewish tailor on the corner of the street? I watched them take that whole family away one night. They threw them into the back of a cart, like collecting refuse. And I stood there on the corner and watched. And do you know what I was thinking? I was thinking, I owe that tailor 12 marks. Now I can forget about it."
Richard's nephew Ernst (Michael Wolf) is rather more pleased to see his uncle. He introduces him to his interestingly close friend Tod, a "super-patriot" who condemns England as a decadent country, who we recognise as the young man who'll later shoot Richard. The choice of the German word for death as his name is as significant as the choice of Richard, with its distinct German and English pronunciations, for the protagonist.
That evening, Richard and Ilsa attend a concert, with Ernst and Tod playing violin. As the music plays, it's drowned out for Richard by the sound in his head of a Nazi rally. Eventually he stands up and screams for it to stop, much to the bemusement of his fellow audience members.
Running outside, he apprehends a thief trying to steal from a car. He hands the young man over to the police, whose brutal treatment of him triggers a flashback to the violence meted out against Jews during the war.
Richard's mind drifts back to his hospital bed, where he's visited by the shades of his wife, his sister and Harry Forbes (Nigel Stock), the British officer who questioned him when he brought his message of peace, and later went into business with him. Forbes here is the voice of British society, holding Richard in contempt even as it proudly trots him out all over the media as a tame German. It forces Richard to confront uncomfortable questions buried in his mind: did he choose a Jewish wife in order to try and prove something?
The figment of Ilsa reads a passage from Richard's book, condemning those who "stood and watched" as Hitler took power. "I did something!" Richard protests. "Of course you did, you're a national hero" says Harry, mock-soothingly, before delivering the devastating truth of what Richard did to help his country: "You took a ride in a plane."
"I was an anti-Nazi!" Richard insists. "Yes, old boy," responds Harry. "In 1944. But what were you in 1934?" As Richard dies, condemned to run through corridors in an op art hell, he realises his crime: he's cast those who acquiesced as a formless other, without ever admitting that he was as much to blame for what happened as anyone.
Sunday 12 January
There's another top guest star in this week's Dr Finlay: it's Patrick Troughton, playing overworked Tannochbrae headmaster Mr Miller.
Mid way through his attempt to teach his class of 60 children algebra, Dr Snoddie pops in to get one of them, Fergus Murray (Derek Keith), and take him for a reading and writing test. When he proves unable to even write his own name, Snoddie agrees with Miller's assessment that the boy will need to go into a remedial class.
Dr Cameron, head of the school board, pops in to see if his plan for new infants' lavatories at the school has been approved. It hasn't - far too expensive. Snoddie takes a moment to mock his choice of reading (this is a mock-up, by the way - there was no such Sexton Blake adventure).
Meanwhile, at Arden House, Dr Finlay is trying out his own intelligence test on Janet, who has her own highly idiosyncratic method for choosing which shapes go together: the circle reminds her of the round-faced dairyman, and the triangle of the instrument he bangs on to alert people to his presence. "Well, if I've got this right you're either a genius or your mental age is 6," ponders Finlay. Cameron returns home and gives the tests a go. He doesn't pass with flying colours.
Finlay's called out to see to Fergus's blacksmith father (Archie Duncan), who's rammed a spike through his wrist.
While there he meets both Fergus and his brother Brian (Gavin Crombie), who's one of Mr Miller's star pupils. It turns out that Fergus has his own skills - he's excellent with his hands and has built a replica of his father's old ship using only a photograph as reference. Mrs Murray (Barbara Ogilvie) asks the doctor whether Fergus is "daft" - she's had a letter from the school saying he's ineducable. Finlay thinks this is utterly wrong.
Mr Miller has called at Arden House to have his ears syringed: he has to have this done regularly as he has only 50% hearing but refuses to wear a hearing aid: he already wears glasses and walks with a stick, and doesn't want a further "Achilles heel" for the children to exploit: "One against 60 - that's not teaching, it's war." Cameron agrees to try and help by getting the local education authority to employ more staff at the school to reduce class sizes, but he's not hopeful of success. Finlay arrives home and confronts Miller about Fergus, who he thinks it would be a crime to see "slung on the scrap heap". Miller angrily insists he knows best.
Undaunted, Finlay tries his own intelligence test on Fergus, whose answers prove that he's really very bright. Mr Murray, however, is not keen to interfere with matters: he wants Fergus to join him at the forge when he finishes school, so what he learns there isn't really important to him. Finlay insists this is the last chance for Fergus to make something of himself.
Finlay goes to see Snoddie (never his biggest fan), who stands by his assessment of Fergus's intelligence. He thinks Mr Murray built the model ship and is passing it off as Fergus's to make the boy seem cleverer.
When Miller takes the register next day, the Murray boys aren't there. Fergus runs in, explaining that Brian is sick. So he doesn't disrupt the class, Miller makes him sit in Brian's seat at the front of the class rather than his usual place at the back. Fergus listens with unusual interest as Miller introduces the class to the UK's political system.
After diagnosing Brian with a sore throat, Finlay has a word with Mr Murray, who seems very cagey, especially when Finlay suggests that a psychologist should see the boy.
When Cameron comes home to tea that evening, he's a bit put out to find Fergus there, especially when Snoddie phones to vent his rage at Finlay's interfering. After a lot of prompting from Finlay and Janet, Fergus reveals that he understood and remembers everything he was taught about politics in school that day.
Cameron's startled by this evidence of Fergus's intelligence. Finlay diagnoses sibling rivalry as the root of the problem ("Use English, man, not psychological jargon!" snaps Cameron). He thinks iit's come about through the Murrays setting different standards for each son. Janet doesn't think much of this idea.
With her usual folksy wisdom, Janet has divined the truth about the Murray brothers: they're really only stepbrothers, the parents only having married after they were both widowed. Cameron confronts Snoddie and Miller about Fergus, insisting he see a psychologist, and they reluctantly acquiesce. But Mr Murray now enters and absolutely forbids it: he thinks it will only rake up unwanted memories about his real mother.
Mrs Murray speaks to Finlay and reveals that she is, not, in fact, Mrs Murray at all: Fergus's mother is still alive, having run off to live in Glasgow. She's seen envelopes full of money that Mr Murray has sent to her, and remembers the address. So off Finlay trots in that direction to see if he can find out any information about Fergus's problems. He's appalled to find that the boy's mother (Katie Gardiner, giving the episode's most entertaining performance) is a drunken old slapper with no interest in the child whatsoever: she never even liked him
When she starts coming on to him, Finlay beats a hasty retreat.
Meanwhile, Cameron goes to the school to follow up an idea of his own. Finlay returns home to find him giving Fergus a hearing test: it turns out that Fergus, just like Miller, has only 50% hearing as the result of a childhood illness, and that when sat at the back he can't hear a word the teacher's saying. "The deaf leading the deaf!" Cameron exclaims, a tad insensitively.
We end back in the classroom, with Fergus now sat at the front next to his brother, and both he and Miller now wearing highly conspicuous hearing aids. Ahhh, it's quite lovely, really.
Monday 13 January
Tonight's BBC TV highlights include a Panorama report on "Automation - the Next Revolution" and Come Dancing, which this week pits the West of England against the West of Scotland, in the Winter Gardens Pavilion, Weston-Super-Mare and the Locarno, Glasgow respectively.
Tuesday 14 January
The sight of a semi-naked Albert basking under a sun lamp is surely enough to distress even the stoutest-hearted of men ("What a revolting sight you are to come home to," notes his son. "You look like a pamphlet for famine relief"). So it seems only fair that there's a scare in store for Steptoe Sr when Harold returns to the yard with his latest finds. Well, a couple of scares in fact: the first is the arrival of Harold himself, who the temporarily blinded Albert initially takes for a burglar.
When he realises it's just Harold, he waxes lyrical about the sunlamp in the face of his son's scepticism: "Apart from making you brown, they bombard you with vitamins. It's like the sun, you see. It gets in through your pores and has a go at your bones." Or it would, if he'd put an ultraviolet bulb in it, rather than the normal 60 watt one he's unwittingly been using.
Albert puts his clothes back on and proceeds to help unload the cart - only to recoil in horror at what's on it: a load of coffins (pronounced "corfins"). They cost Harold £6.5/, and he's determined to keep them in the house despite Albert's superstitious objections: "I'm not leaving them out here to get warped. Who wants a warped coffin?" "It's you that's warped!"
"These coffins go into my house over my dead body!" Albert insists. "Well that's one sale," his son less-than-sympathetically replies.
Harold's bemused by his father's stock of absurd superstitions: "Oh my God, the omens we have had. Cross-eyed dogs; 'Don't step on a spider or else it will rain'... I'll never forget the day a sparrowhawk dropped dead at my feet. You said that meant I was going to be Prime Minister." Albert insists he hasn't always got it wrong: "You scoffed when those pigeons settled on Mrs Bentley's roof, didn't you? I said, that's an omen, she's not got long to go. And I was right, she was dead inside 18 months." "Dad, she was 102".
Albert's objections to the coffins are not to be dismissed: "If they stay here this house will be a house of mourning!" he insists. Harold sighs. "Well it hasn't exactly been a fun palace for the last 20 years, has it? Straight out of Dickens, this place is. Mind you, I don't think Fagin could've lasted more than a couple of nights in this doss house. Come to think of it, you're a little bit like him, aren't you...?"
Harold tries to reason with his father: "If they was an omen of doom there wouldn't be a live undertaker left in the country. They'd all be stretched out in their own boxes." He winds Albert up with the suggestion that they go into undertaking full time: "There's three things what the human race has got to do: eat, drink and snuff it. You get in on any one of those, mate, and you're set up for life." It's all about the three Bs: Beef, Booze and Boxes. Albert's unimpressed: "You're evil, that's what you are - evil!"
Albert won't sleep in the house while the coffins are there: he's going to spend the night with the horse: "It'll be purer out there with an innocent animal than in here with the smell of evil and death," he announces in one of his periodic fits of religious fervour.
Harold scoffs at his father, but alone in the house that night he begins to feel uneasy. That skeleton's never seemed quite so frightening.
That night, Harold's wakened by a terrible storm outside. The lights have stopped working, and he's forced to shuffle round the house with a candle like a frightened Gothic heroine. Are those pigeons he can hear settling on the roof?
Finally, he joins Albert in the stable, promising to get rid of the coffins the following day as long as he doesn't have to stay in the house. It's an occasion for much smugness on Albert's part - or at least it is for the few seconds that Harold's degeneration into a terrified little boy isn't totally unbearable...
Tonight's episode of The Plane Makers features a pair of guest stars guaranteed to gladden the heart of any 60s film and TV fan.
Magee makes a return appearance as abrasive Scott-Furlong works manager Bill Breen, while Villiers plays the episode's title character. More formally known as Harvey Graves, he's an upper class "deb's delight" who's sailed straight into an executive position thanks to having an uncle on the company's board. When we first see him he's easing his sports car into the parking space reserved for John Wilder (marked by a sign in a font of the kind more readily associated with hairdressers catering to an elderly clientele). The commissionaire's near apopleptic about the mistake, but Wilder, turning up in time to see Graves cheerily vacate the spot, insists he shouldn't get himself het up about it: "It's not your job he's after".
Arthur Sugden's disgruntled by both the blatant nepotism that got Harvey his job and the fact that the Smiler's been added to his workforce without him even being consulted. Wilder soothes these concerns by revealing that he wanted Harvey in the role due to his previous job with one of Scott-Furlong's competitors: he's hoping they can make good use of what he learned while he was there. And Harvey clearly has other uses as well: when Wilder has trouble getting past the secretary of a Whitehall bigwig, the Smiler volunteers to take over the phone: "Cynthia? What do you mean, who is it? Yes, of course it is! Well, it's rather a long story, old darling, but Birmingham doesn't exist any more. No, I'm with Scott-Furlong's now. Yes, really! Ah, well, a lot of air has been sucked through the jets since we saw My Fair Lady together... Look, darling, I wonder if you could put me through to Mike?" Mike goes on to do exactly what Wilder wants him to.
One person Harvey seems rather less likely to influence is Bill Breen (seen below accepting an especially gruesome cup of coffee from Arthur's Fag Ash Lil incarnate secretary Margie). Rather more chippy about his working class origins than Arthur, Breen feels decidedly uncomfortable at having a young posho snapping at his heels - and he comes straight out with his knowledge of what both Wilder and Sugden are too polite to mention - Harvey was persuaded to leave his previous job after taking the group manager's secretary on an impromptu trip to Paris. Echoing Wilder, Arthur assures Breen he needn't fear for his job - Harvey's likely to have his eye on a rather more senior position.
Breen's attempts to shove Harvey into the most lowly corner of the factory he can fail miserably, and before he knows it he and Arthur are giving young Graves a personal tour of the premises. Graves isn't too impressed with the shop floor: "It lacks what one might describe as poetic flow..." The facial expression with which Patrick Magee responds to this airy proclamation is priceless.
It's only a matter of time before Harvey's using an increasingly wrathful Breen to hold up plans for him...
...and talk of "poetic flow" has infected other members of the team.
Impressed with Graves' progress, Wilder moves him up to work directly with Arthur Sugden. Arthur's still on probation in his role as Wilder's number two, and it's becoming increasingly clear that the managing director would like to replace the salt-of-the-earth former factory hand with the public school charmer. On the surface Arthur seems perfectly sanguine about it all, but the fact that he's suddenly cancelled a two week holiday tells its own story.
Meanwhile, Harvey's prime concern is hanging about the typing pool, charming its polka dotted dictator Miss Fitzmeyer (Pat Nye). She looks forward to his personal appearances: "Normally the phone rings and some gruff voice says 'Send a gel to my office'. Makes us feel like a vice ring." It's all a preamble to choosing a secretary of his own, and his eye finally alights on a very pretty young lady named Lamorna (Gabriella Licudi).
At the same time, Harvey's up to his old tricks again, regularly wining and dining Lamorna's friend Kay Lingard, secretary to John Wilder. A trip to Paris is in the offing.
But before that can happen there's a sudden turnabout in Harvey Graves' fortunes (very sudden, in fact - the episode's climax seems extremely rushed). Just as Arthur Sugden's beginning to warm to Harvey, Wilder learns that the Smiler has been sneaking about the factory trying to get a look at the latest top secret designs. Wilder becomes convinced that the man who was very recently his new favourite is in fact spying for the company he ostensibly left - and leaves it up to a bewildered Arthur to get rid of him.
Shortly after Harvey's two prospective love interests find out about each other, he's called in to see Arthur, who sheepishly mumbles about having more assistants than he needs. It's clearly a story Harvey's heard before, and his hearty exterior briefly slips as he reveals how much he's enjoyed working with Arthur, and that he doesn't think he'll ever find a workplace where he's trusted.
Worthwhile mainly for the exuberance James Villiers brings to his role (one its impossible to imagine anyone else playing as well), The Smiler eventually fails to satisfy: it's just too low key, with Harvey's exit, ambling off down the corridors of Scott-Furlong feeling mildly disappointed, a decidedly feeble pay-off.
Wednesday 15 January
Tonight's Festival play on the BBC is Aristophanes' Lysistrata, with a cast including Diane Cilento, Alec Clunes, Ann Bell, Frederick Jaeger, Esmond Knight and Elizabeth Spriggs.
Thursday 16 January
Sadly I've little to say about The Buried Spaceship beyond observing that it's unusually dull for a Space Patrol episode. No barmy inventions or bizarre alien species this week: just a spaceship, getting buried. And then freeing itself.
It all starts with a drought on Mars, and Professor Haggerty's efforts to relieve it. "I may be a genius, but I'm not a magician!" he cries, pre-empting a popular TV doctor. He's been brought to the end of his tether by Colonel Raeburn taking his joke about exporting Ireland's climate to Mars as a genuine statement of intent. One thing that might be possible is to ferry some water from Venus (the wettest planet in the solar system) to Mars. Marla suggests the easiest way to transport it would be to freeze it. "You're not only beautiful Marla, you're brainy!" the Colonel gasps. She's also easily pleased: "A compliment from Colonel Raeburn. How extraordinarily delightful!"
Resident pest Gabbler is doing his best to hinder the professor's research. Though in a very roundabout way he inspires Haggerty's eventual solution to the drought. Using the lab's supply of sugar cubes to construct a house, he reminds the professor of Pluto, the only planet where people still use bricks - made out of ice. Haggerty hits on the idea of sending Plutonian ice blocks to Mars.
The crew of Galasphere 347 head to Pluto to supervise the first ice freight, but the ice is being cut in the area where they land, and the ship plunges through the planet's surface.
500 yards beneath the surface of Pluto, how will the ship get out? The Buried Spaceship suffers from being scheduled directly after last week's The Talking Bell, which featured Larry Dart trapped underground, but also had a talking bell in it. The Buried Spaceship doesn't, and feels decidedly lacklustre in comparison. The ship's eventually freed, but I can barely remember how. Probably the most enjoyable part of the episode is Slim's line as the Galasphere turbulently rises: "I'm being tossed so much I feel like a pancake!"
Tonight's episode of The Saint also starts off in rather dull fashion. We may be in far-off Buenos Aires, but the establishing shots seem more interested in such prosaic matters as roundabouts than anything else.
Well, they're prosaic to us sophisticates of the early 21st century, anyway. In 1962 (when this episode was made - it took a while to get to the screen), a roundabout was a stirring symbol of modernity (well, it might have been to some people) - and the focus on space-age roadways sells Buenos Aires to us as a thrilling, go-ahead sort of city. It's in a thrillingly modern underpass that a pair of security van drivers come a cropper, gassed to death by a pair of crooks (one of them's gap-toothed Larry Taylor, the most ubiquitous of all ITC heavies) who drive off with a vanful of gold.
Meanwhile, at one of the city's bright, gay hotels (this episode has a feel of being funded by the Buenos Aires tourist board, though of course it's mainly filmed in Hertfordshire), American widow Beryl Carrington (Ann Gillis) - her late husband owned the premier umbrella factory in the Americas - makes a stop on the world tour she never got to do while her husband was alive. The episode's particularly manic comic relief is provided by Victor Spinetti as a harassed commissionaire.
It's not long before Beryl's being romanced by one of the locals, Ramon (pronounced "Raymond") Venino (It's Dark Outside's John Carson). He takes her on several romantic outings, but wherever they go they're followed by a pair of sinister men - the same ones we saw committing the robbery earlier on, in fact.
Just as their romance is hotting up, Ramon announces he can never see Beryl again: the men who follow him have made him fear for her safety. Initially reluctant to tell her why he's being trailed, he eventually announces that he's an anti-fascist, the leader of an organisation preparing to fight a predicted resurgence in the country's far right: which includes the men who are following him.
Eventually Beryl tracks Ramon down in a seedy rented room where he's hiding out from his pursuers. She pledges her assistance in his fight, and he entrusts her with a case which he claims contains information on all the men in his organisation: he wants to get it out of the country, which Beryl valiantly offers to do. In the meantime, she lends Ramon her car - if he doesn't bring it back that evening she's to burn the contents of the case.
Fearing for the man who's made her feel alive for the first time in years, Beryl goes against Ramon's instructions and tells Simon Templar (conveniently staying at the same hotel) all about what's happened. His investigation starts with him obtaining a recap of Argentina's recent history from the hotel's manager (Michael Rittermann), for the benefit of viewers whose knowledge of the country is limited to it being the source of the UK's corned beef supplies. It seems Ramon was considerably exaggerating the threat of fascists returning to power.
As is always the case, Simon's set upon half way through the episode by the thugs, who dangle him out of a window. But he soon manages to turn the tables (or, more accurately, the bed) on them.
Simon heads to the room Ramon was renting, only to find he's cleared out. The landlady (gargantuan Madge Brindley, one of British film and TV's most distinctive bit part players) reveals that his rent was paid by "the big man" at the garage opposite.
Said big man (Christopher Rhodes, who aristocracy fans may like to note was a baronet) immediately lays Simon out, and with the Saint in a vulnerable position Ramon appears, revealing himself as the mastermind of a criminal gang with sinister plans for poor, trusting Mrs Carrington.
Making his second appearance here this week (and not getting nearly enough screen time) is Patrick Troughton, as The Saint's irascible police chief of the week. Alan Browning is his second in command. As he sets out on Ramon's trail...
...Simon avails himself of the fact that his guard (Joby Blanshard) is a nervous wreck in order to secure his freedom.
Simon arrives at the hotel just as Ramon's talking Beryl into travelling to Europe with him, by car. The Saint reveals to the initially disbelieving widow that while Ramon had her car he replaced the bumper with one made out of the stolen gold, which he was using her to get out of the country. She's not best pleased.
But, with the final capture of Ramon and his gang, Inspector Troughton certainly is.
And we end in particularly downbeat fashion with Beryl contemplating her future as a lovelorn romantic matron falling for any slimy gigolo who pays her the slightest attention.
The Romantic Matron is utterly predictable throughout, but it's none the worse for that. In fact, with its excellent cast and genuinely interesting setting it's one of the very best Saint episodes I've featured here so far - even though the decidedly mid-Atlantic accent affected by Roger Moore at this point in the show's production is both weird and aggravating.
Friday 17 January
This week's It's Dark Outside begins in especially glum fashion in prison, with a grim procession making its way to the condemned cell. An uncredited but unmistakable Kathy Staff plays one of the warders.
The young woman dragged screaming to her state sanctioned demise is Juliet White, a prostitute convicted for killing one of her clients. After her punishment's been carried out, in the very different surroundings of their opulent flat, Anthony and Alice Brand discuss the case, Anthony having started a petition against Juliet's sentence. He's convinced that Juliet's profession prejudiced the jury against her: "We don't hang people because they commit murders but because we disapprove of their private lives," he snarls. In this context, it's surely no coincidence that the fictional Juliet White story is placed next to a genuine one about Stephen Ward in the newspaper.
When they meet at their club, Anthony's regular sparring partner Inspector Rose suggests that the real reason he's so incensed by the case is that his petition only attracted 2000 signatures. Further discussion is cut short when Anthony receives a message from a mysterious woman asking to see him at the Skeleton Club, a coffee bar in Soho ("A haunt of cheap courtesans, predatory pimps and other unsavoury citizens," in Rose's words), in connection with the Juliet White affair. "Caveat emptor", Rose portentously warns Brand of any information he might be about to receive. With its morbid decor and blank-faced Morticia-wannabe staff, the Skeleton Club's clearly inspired by the real-life Le Macabre in Meard Street. There, Brand meets dippy beatnik Dolores Dacosta (aka Dorothy Coates), played by Patricia Healey, a future regular in Lindsay Anderson's films.
A dancer whose career never hit the dizzy heights promised by her role in Odds and Ends, a topical revue of the kind popular in the early 60s, in which she had a number about the 11 plus, Dolores confesses to Brand that it was she who committed the murder her friend Juliet White's been hanged for. She's of the belief that the law doesn't allow two people to be hanged for the same crime - which Brand deliberately doesn't disabuse her of.
Brand takes Dolores' story to Rose, who swiftly dismisses her as a dim publicity seeker. The inspector's rather more impressed with the knowledge of Latin Sergeant Swift reveals as they discuss the late Ms White:
"De mortuis nil nisi bonum - never speak ill of the dead, sir."
"You astound me, Swift."
"It was on one of those question and answer programmes the other evening."
Despite Rose's pooh-poohing, Brand sees Dolores' confession as an ideal opportunity to cast the death penalty he despises in the worst possible light by proving the death of an innocent woman. And, perhaps more importantly, to cause a huge embarrassment to the Home Secretary (at the time this office was filled by the notoriously inept Henry Brooke, who That Was the Week That Was characterised as "The most hated man in Britain"). Brand senses a powerful ally in Alice's friend Seth Danby (Godfrey Quigley), a fearsome TV interrogator (whose glasses and bow tie indicate that he's based on Robin Day), who we first see reducing a deserter from the guards to jelly with his fierce questioning.
Just as Brand's plotting Dolores' appearance on Danby's show she turns up at his house. Having realised she could be convicted for the murder after all, she's come, along with her dope fiend boyfriend Scooty (Brian Phelan) to inform Brand that her whole story was a lie, intended to kickstart her showbiz career. There's an oblique reference to Profumo and similar scandals as Dolores vents her frustration that so many girls are coming out of nowhere off the back of sex scandals and getting jobs denied to a professional like her .
Brand's not going to give up his plans that easily. He talks Danby into letting him appear on the show himself to tell the public about Dolores' first confession (keeping quiet about the second). Dolores is horrified, but elsewhere in London a young man watching it (and recording it) is inspired.
This is Alan Day (Michael Meacham), a career opportunist who rapidly instals himself as Dolores' publicity manager (the girl herself doesn't have much say in the matter). His first action is to launch a slander suit against Brand - which is precisely what the lawyer was hoping for. Day proves rather enthusiastic about his new role than Dolores might have liked...
Brand's game-playing earns him the enmity of Danby, outraged that the lawyer's used him as a pawn. Brand's next pawn is Scooty, peeved at Dolores after she refused to continue supplying him with drugs, who he pays to tell Day compromising stories about her.
Despite (in truth because of) their ongoing battle, Day invites Brand to a party at his flat. Unable to make it, Brand sends Alice in his place, encouraging her to take Sergeant Swift - of all people - along with her. This particular odd couple are, despite each other's better instincts, getting increasingly close.
The absurdly sophisticated Alice doesn't bat an eyelid at the dodgy crowd hanging out at Day's, but the decorative zombies and offers of drugs prove a bit much for the policeman.
Eventually Dolores is so overcome by angst that she withdraws her slander action, and ends up sentenced to six months in prison for peddling drugs. When they meet in court, the implacable Rose informs Brand there will be no further developments in the Juliet White affair: Brand's attempts to stir up trouble have all been for nothing. But as the atmosphere between these two grows increasingly frosty, it looks like things might be continuing to heat up between their respective partners...
Seven months after this episode was broadcast, Peter Allen and Gwynne Evans would be the last people to be executed in the UK. The following year the death penalty would be abolished. By this time the Home Secretary was Roy Jenkins - as the epitome of the Champagne socialist it's safe to say he's a figure Anthony Brand would have felt rather more comfortable with.
You can see full Radio Times listings for the week's BBC programmes here.
And to play us out...
It's the Swinging Blue Jeans, at number 3 in this week's chart with their version of a song that had gained popularity as part of the Beatles' live repertoire. The Fab Four themselves continue to hog the number 1 spot. You can see the full chart here.
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