21-27 December 1963

Saturday 21 December

This week the doors of our favourite poorly camouflaged timeship open to reveal a strange alien jungle, made to look even more strange because everything's in negative.  The vegetation's petrified, but what exactly happened to turn all these plants into plant-shaped rocks?

Susan's excited to find a perfectly preserved flower, but her dreams of keeping it in pride of place in a special case in the TARDIS are unthinking crushed (along with the flower itself) when Ian dashes off to answer a cry of distress from Barbara.

The cause of Barbara's distress is this, Doctor Who's first ever alien creature.

The creature's not much of a menace - like everything else in the jungle it proves to be quite dead.  As the Doctor examines it he concludes it was quite different to any animal Ian and Barbara are used to - for a start it's made of metal (by the way, the Doctor appears to be trying to outdo Barbara this week with a skyscraping bouffant.

With the metal monster confirming beyond all doubt that the Doctor hasn't taken the teachers home, Barbara especially is crushed by the realisation she may never see 1960s London again.  "Here there's nothing to rely on, nothing," she mopes.  "Well, there's me," says Ian, sweetly.  In story terms the pair can't have known the Doctor for much more than a day, but they talk about him as if they'd known him for, well, about five weeks ("Don't you ever wish something would happen to him?" Barbara growls when Ian suggests they should make sure he doesn't come to grief while exploring).

The travellers' explorations eventually lead them to a panoramic view of a bizarre, magnificent alien city (designed, like most of what we see in this episode, by the brilliant Ray Cusick).  The Doctor passes round his amazing binocular spectacles for his companions to get a better view (as you have to hold them up to your eyes like normal binoculars they're perhaps not a complete success).

The Doctor's characterisation's a great deal like George Coulouris's troublesome scientist anti-hero in the Pathfinders series made under the aegis of BBC Head of Drama Sydney Newman during his time at ABC: he's determined to see the city close-up and only agrees to his companions' insistence that they head off in the TARDIS with the greatest reluctance.  On the way, Susan finds another perfectly preserved flower - but ends up discarding it when she's disturbed by an unseen, but very clearly felt, presence...

It's a spooky highlight of a tremendously atmospheric episode, aided greatly by the ethereal sounds of Tristram Cary.

Aboard the ship Susan sulks that nobody believes she's been touched, Barbara comes down with a headache, and the regular characters all enjoy themselves together for the first time as they tuck into the miraculously-flavoured nutrition sticks provided by the TARDIS's food machine.  It's lovely stuff, the Doctor showing a gentler side as he chortles with glee over Ian and Barbara's wonderment at the unpromising morsels that taste just like bacon and eggs, jokingly defending them against charges of saltiness ("Well it shouldn't be, it's English!" he cries, betraying an identification with that country that suggests maybe he wasn't just parked there by accident when the teachers stumbled into his ship).

The Doctor may be thawing toward his abductees, but not enough to stop him deceiving them to get his own way.  The ship stalls during takeoff, and it's all down to sabotage by its mischievous pilot.  He's emptied out the fluid link, which needs to be full of mercury in order for the TARDIS to work.  Alarmingly, he claims there's no more aboard the ship.  They may not be stranded forever though: the Doctor's convinced they can find a supply of Mercury in... the city!  The dirty swine.

As the travellers begin their quest for mercury, they find a strange metal box outside the ship.  Ian establishes it's not a bomb, and finds it's full of glass vials.  As none of them contain mercury, they're dumped in the ship to be looked at later.

When they arrive at their destination, the companions split up to investigate.  Close up the city's even stranger than it is far away, with curious sliding doors and seemingly endless weirdly-shaped metal corridors.  Barbara gets lost in these labyrinthine passageways, and it becomes clear that someone or something is monitoring her progress.

She eventually stumbles unwittingly into a lift, which takes her down into the city's depths.  When the door slides open, she screams on being confronted with... a thing.  What is it? Find out next week.

It's the end of the road for The Sentimental Agent tonight, and although it's the most enjoyable episode for some weeks it's still probably just as well that time's been called on the series (I think I might have mixed a metaphor there, but never mind).

A couple of weeks ago I said we'd seen the last of the show's original lead, Carlos Thompson, but it turns out that announcement was premature.  He appears very briefly in A Box of Tricks in a couple of highly embarrassing scenes in which his image is projected behind a buxom blonde lady (Sheree Winton), supposedly his travelling companion as he swans off abroad.  He gets a few lines of dialogue of the "Hello", "Oh really?", "That's good" kind that could be inserted into any script.

The main business of the episode involves Bill Randall heading off to the Mediterranean republic of Palabria to find out why their government is resisting a substantial development grant from the Dollars for Europe Trust (the trust's represented by a fleetingly-seen Louise King, possibly popping in on her way back from Thursday's episode of The Saint).

It seems the trust's fallen down on not offering the members of the Palabrian government any bribes: Bill explains they're a national custom, and always worked into the budget of any dealings Mercury International has with them.  He heads off to Palabria to distribute backhanders all round.  On the way, we're apprised of Faithful Manservant Chin's new interest in conjuring, which it's safe to assume will prove significant later on.

Zena Marshall (in her second Sentimental Agent guest appearance) is also waiting to fly to Palabria (via Rome, which sounds more like Hove in the accent she's adopted).  She's Rita, the daughter of a rich Palabrian noble, and is not-all-that-reluctantly taking leave of her boyfriend to go and marry an even richer Palabrian noble.

In Palabria, Bill meets up with a chum, local politician Mateo (dead handsome Gary Raymond).  But a political rival, Souza (Walter Gotell), getting wind of what Bill's come for and opposed to the grant for reasons of his own, decides to give both the agent and the especially unfortunate Chin a hard time.

Undeterred, Bill sets to work on the other members of the government, including Rita's father, the Count de Rici (Ferdy Mayne).  Unfortunately, his plans to encourage each of them into accepting the trust's grant are hampered by the presence of Mr Dali (George Pastell and his toupee), who's investigating bribery and corruption in Palabria.

With the help of Chin's newly acquired sleight of hand skills, Bill's able to bribe most of the government under Dali's very nose.  And luckily, it turns out Dali himself is eminently corruptible.  Huzzah!

It's lightweight stuff (and morally dubious, to say the least), but it raises a smile or two.

Here, for definite this time, is our last glimpse of Carlos Varela, as he speaks his final non-committal lines down the phone to Miss Carter.

The series ends with the secretary confessing her love for Bill down the phone.  Or does she? She's on the line to Carlos at the very same time, and her facial expression when she replaces the receivers is enigmatic.  Either way, Bill's off to ask her to marry him.  Will she accept? We'll never know, and to be brutally honest, few of us will care.

Next week sees the return of Sergeant Cork, which is something I for one care about rather a lot.

The Larkins tonight becomes the first show covered by TV Minus 50 to acknowledge the impending festive season, with Alf and Osbert supervising the decoration of the caff in their own characteristically relaxed manner.

In the past few weeks the flirtation between caff dogsbody Hetty and chirpy Scouse bus driver Lofty has intensified, so it's worth noting that prior to this series Hetty had a husband and child who also regularly appeared in the show.  What has become of them is a mystery destined never to be solved.

The highlight of this week's episode comes early on with the arrival of a worryingly decrepit postal worker: "They don't half scrape the barrel at this time of year," muses Ada.

This Royal Mail revenant has, however, brought glad tidings for the Larkins.  A letter from their daughter Joyce announces that her husband Jeff (Ronan O'Casey), now a successful playwright on Broadway, is visiting London and will be spending Christmas with his in-laws (Hugh Paddick pre-empts his Round the Horne co-star Betty Marsden's future catchphrase as Osbert sighs "Many times" on being asked if Alf's told him yet another tedious anecdote about what a brilliant time he used to have with Jeff).  When the man himself finally arrives, though, it appears brilliant times will be in short supply during his stay.  A martyr to his ulcer, along with sundry other ailments, he's foresworn alcohol, and indeed anything else that might provide a moment of enjoyment.  His suitcase contains an entire medical chest.  His idea of indulgence is eating two charcoal biscuits before bedtime.  Alf and Ada are horrified by what success (and, more importantly, living on the other side of the Atlantic) have done to him.

After being accidentally locked outside by an extremely drunken Osbert ("A wandering minstrel I, a thing of shreds and patches/I've lost me bloody matches..."), Jeff's condition worsens, much to the consternation of his hosts (interesting to note Ada wears a tea cosy to bed - it's quite a cunning way to stop it being stolen).  Jeff only trusts his own American doctor, so it's lucky he happens to be in town to examine him (I say American - actor Robert Easton's accent seems to be from a continent all its own).

The doc explains it's a simple case of hypochondria, and sets Ada the challenge of tackling it.  Armed with a hefty volume on psychiatry, she sets about it ("You can 'ave it off that lot at 'arley Street or you can 'ave it off me.  But I'm cheaper!").

But it seems that, as is so often the case, the solution to the problem is alcohol.  Alf's secret weapon is a bottle of that exotic Foreign liqueur, vodka ("Ooh! I've never had that," marvels Hetty).  It's virtually tasteless, so Alf plans to smuggle it into Jeff's milk and get him legless without him even realising.

The plan seems to go swimmingly, neurotic Jeff swiftly replaced with the old, fun version with just a couple of gulps.  But in comes triumphant Ada with the revelation that she switched the glasses of milk and nobody's drunk after all.  She really is a mistress of psychology!

Now there's just the problem of what to do with Hetty...

Strained Relation's silly fun as The Larkins always is, but it's also fascinating for its early 60s working class British view of Americans as a load of uptight poseurs who'd be much better off were they to just get sloshed.

Tonight's Avengers gets off to a gripping start with the daring theft of... some mushrooms!

Somehow these mysterious fungi link in with the visit to London of the Emir Abdulla Akabar, ruler of a troubled country and a frequent target of assassination attempts.  Supposedly very elderly, the Emir's played by 33 year old Henry Soskin: it's curious how often in this period the elderly were played by much younger actors with unconvincing makeup and talc in their hair.  Anyway, possibly more interesting than that observation is the fact that Soskin later changed his name to Henry Lincoln, co-wrote a handful of Doctor Who stories and has achieved a degree of notoriety in recent years for suing US author Dan Brown for ripping off his book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail in his blockbuster Christsploitation novel The Da Vinci Code.  More interesting than any of this is that the Emir's majordomo Brigadier Mellor is played by the wonderful Robert James, owner of the most interesting face on television.  The Emir's comfort is being seen to by Cathy Gale, undercover at the swanky hotel where he's staying.

The Emir is a famed gourmet, and in the hotel's kitchen oleaginous head chef Mr Arbuthnot (the gloriously camp Ken Parry) is doing his best to supervise a crack team of international chefs employed especially for the visit.  Combustible continentals Lucien Chaplet (Gordon Rollings) and Umberto Equi (David Nettheim) can barely be kept from each other's throats...

...while the English member of the contingent, Sebastian Stone-Martin, looks remarkably familiar.

Yes, it's Steed of course (just in case some of you are a bit slow).  But where did this alias come from? "I got it from a bird," he explains to Cathy.  Even at this stage in the show's development it's not a very Steedish line.

Another member of the hotel's staff worth mentioning is lazy kitchen maid Josie, one of those working class women who appear surprisingly frequently in The Avengers' early days.  She's played by Coral Atkins, best known for giving up acting to set up a children's home, and achieving the distinction of being played by Sarah Lancashire in an ITV drama.

The Emir's doctor, Sir Ralph Spender, is appalled by the old man's cavalier attitude toward his health, gulping down huge brandies and rich food with aplomb.  *DOUBLE ENTENDRE ALERT* "That's rather a stiff one, isn't it?" Sir Ralph asks of Mellor.  "That's the way he likes them, Sir," the Brigadier explains.  But is the doctor as concerned about the Emir's health as he appears? Security goon Ali (Valentine Musetti) finds him surreptitiously slipping a mysterious powder into a drink.  Turns out it's his own drink, and he has a problem with heartburn he likes to keep quiet.

Anyway, what about those mushrooms? They're poisonous ones, of course, and it emerges that Lucien is in league with Mellor to dispatch the Emir with them.  His attempt to frame Umberto by planting them in his cannelloni are foiled by a suspicious Steed, however (Umberto's cry of "You great big steamin' nit!" on having his dish ruined is the first indication we get that he may not be as Italian as he'd like us to think).

Death a la Carte resolves itself into The Avengers meets Masterchef as Steed faces the challenge of cooking a roast pheasant fit for an Emir under the scrutiny of several top chefs.

And by jove, he does it! The Emir's raving about his dinner right up to the point where he, er, drops dead.

Steed and Cathy are kept prisoner in the Emir's penthouse as the police are sent for.  Determined to get to the fatal ingredient before Lucien disposes of it, Steed makes a daring rooftop escape.

Steed reaches the kitchen just as Lucien himself is being disposed of by Ali.  A fight ensues between Steed and Ali that ends in especially grisly fashion with the heavy getting a pan of hot oil chucked at him.  Cathy, of course, has effectively subdued Mellor in the interim.

It turns out the Emir died of a coronary, causing Mellor a great deal of panic as the poison wasn't due to take effect for a week.  We end with so-called Umberto dropping his act altogether as he rewards our heroes with a slap-up meal.  Could it be some lavish Italian delicacy? "Do me a favour, Mr Steed, I've 'ad that Eye-talian lark.  This is real food: fish and chips, mate.  We're frying tonight!"

Written by Avengers veteran John Lucarotti, Death a la Carte feels like a hangover from the show's previous season.  There, it would have been a highlight.  But in the past few months the show's given us episodes of stupendous quality and now it all just seems a bit blah.

I'm not covering tonight's episode of Espionage, The Whistling Shrimp.  Made in the USA with an American cast and crew, it falls outside my British telly remit.  The series will return after Christmas with an episode directed by one of the finest film directors Britain's ever produced.

Sunday 22 December

Like most of this week's shows, tonight's That's My Boy isn't in any way Christmassy.  And although it's the last episode of the series, there's nothing any more spectacular than a guest appearance from newscaster Huw Thomas going on.  He's first seen announcing an enormous traffic pile-up, which turns out to be all Jimmy's fault (we learn here that the Clitheroe family live in Middleborough (not to be confuses with Middlesbrough).

The main business of the episode begins with Jimmy trying to convince his mother to buy him a new goldfish (the previous one died of pneumonia), as a first instalment toward the huge tropical aquarium he dreams of owning.  Mrs Clitheroe, however, is absorbed with an opportunity that's come up to get her son on the books of a talent agency that specialises in "Children's Hour commercials" (she and her husband discuss the matter at tea, during which flies can be seen crawling all over the rock cakes in the foreground).

Jimmy's not at all keen on the idea of becoming a TV star, but a combination of a threatened spanking and persuasion from Bert Bamford that it could be a good way of getting his aquarium eventually makes him agree.

There's some very confused writing in this episode, particularly in the scene where Jimmy returns home from school, cringing in embarrassment after being kissed by a schoolmate, Daisy Hacker, who's seen him on TV and thinks he looks like one of the Beatles (this leads to much merriment among the other members of the Clitheroe family).  Only moments later, however, we're informed that Jimmy hasn't actually been in an advert yet, he's just been doing screen tests.

He hies himself away to rehearse for the advert for Frank's Fruit Jellies which will see his screen debut.  Bert's highly impressed with his ability to look like he's enjoying a bowl of jelly.,,

...and this leads to Jimmy becoming obsessed with the idea of stardom, fantasising about Huw Thomas reporting on his exploits.

Jimmy's new diva-ish behaviour and his tendency to endlessly sing jingles around the house (which has led to Dad christening him "Screaming Lord Sutch") eventually see him on the receiving end of Dad's slipper (this happens offscreen, but Jimmy's sister Janice takes disturbingly great delight in listening to it).

Next, on the advice of Daisy Hacker, president and sole member of his fan club, Jimmy decides to chuck in acting and embark upon a pop career.  To this end he attaches an electrical lead to his dad's old banjo and ends up causing a fire in the sitting room.

As often happened at the time (but not so often now), getting covered in soot leads to Jimmy performing an impromptu rendition of "Mammy".

The episode (and the series) ends with the sight of a diminutive 42 year old man dressed as a schoolboy being spanked.  I daresay somebody enjoyed this spectacle.

The somewhat makeshift nature of this episode (it seems downright bizarre to have a plot about Jimmy appearing in commercials and yet not show any of them) fully justifies the end credits' image of writer Bob Block throwing the pages of the script in the air in despair.

There's no more That's My Boy, but Jimmy Clitheroe returns the following year in a new show, Just Jimmy, that cleaves closer to his very popular radio series.  It's one of the many ironies of the archives that while the comparatively obscure That's My Boy, broadcast only in the ABC region, still exists in its entirety, only one episode of Just Jimmy, which ran for five years and was broadcast nationwide, survives.

Monday 23 December

On the BBC tonight there's a repeat of an intriguing-sounding episode of the Benny Hill show, The Time Bicycle (guest starring Graham Stark and Mollie Sugden).  Later, both BBC and ITV present a look back at the events of 1963 in the Panorama and World in Action strands respectively.

Tuesday 24 December

Christmas has come to Scott-Furlong, as you can tell from these spectacular festive displays.

The bottom picture shows Arthur Sugden's redoubtable secretary Margie Thomas (it's pronounced with a hard g, by the way) collapsing in pain due to the synovitis that's inflamed her hand and made her every waking moment an unbearable agony.  Still, she's not one to make a fuss, and it takes some persuading to get her to visit the doctor (note the "People You Know Are Blood Donors" poster featuring TV's Jack Warner in the waiting room).

It's nice that Margie gets a bit more of the spotlight than usual this week: we learn that she's unmarried and all alone in the world apart from a retired fellow spinster she spends Christmas with every year at a guest house in the country.  Sadly, this year she's in too much pain to make the trip, but after she's been operated on Big-Hearted Arthur invites her to spend Christmas with the Sugden family.

Not all Arthur's staff are as easy to please as Margie: men such as serial grumbler Nobby (Royston Tickner) have had enough of Scott-Furlong's draughty workshops and stale steak and kidney pie.  It's all a long way from the fancy nosh MD John Wilder enjoys at chairman Sir Gordon Revidge's club ("How would you react to potted shrimps?")

But sub-British Restaurant steak and kidney pie is the least of the workforce's worries.  In order to free up labour for his plan to build 12 Sovereign jets, Wilder's announced that the company's work on Red Major missiles is to be discontinued.  This is going to mean a few redundancies, which Arthur discusses with district union boss George Chadwick (Bruce Beeby).  Chadwick joshes Arthur over his rise from working man to executive - he even smokes a fancy new pipe tobacco these days (oh, if only office work still looked like this).

Could the new tobacco be the first step in a journey that will culminate in the gargantuan cigars smoked by Sir Gordon and his friend Lord Teddington? When they meet for drinks and a game of snooker, Revidge reveals that the merchant bank he chairs will be refusing to lend the money for Wilder's Sovereign project: Revidge reveals that his main aim in his chairmanship of Scott-Furlong is to get rid of Wilder, whom he despises.  So he's a tad nonplussed by Wilder's unfazed reaction to the refusal of the loan.

The cancellation of the projected 12 Sovereigns means that all 400 staff previously working on the missiles now face redundancy.  And just before Christmas, too.  Arthur's exasperated by how unconcerned Wilder seems to be by both the loss of livelihoods and the prospect of the large scale industrial action this is likely to provoke.  Deciding a strike would be the best thing for everyone, Arthur uses reverse psychology to persuade the cautious Chadwick to call the workforce out.  Here are some of said workforce, chomping at the bit to stick it to their employers.

When Chadwick gets the whole company to agree to a walkout in sympathy with their colleagues who face redundancy, the impending catastrophe forces Revidge to change his mind and approve the loan for the 12 Sovereigns after all.  And it becomes clear to a bewildered Arthur that the whole labour crisis was expertly engineered by Wilder to get what he wanted - and that, while he's been pulling Chadwick's strings, Wilder's been pulling his own.  He takes it all in pipe-puffing good humour, but Leslie Sands' superbly twisty script points up the brutal irony that Arthur's attempt to rebel against management and align himself with the workers he still wants to believe himself one of has simply led him to do Wilder's bidding more efficiently than ever before.

Now for a show that was a big hit for the BBC throughout its four year run, though, inevitably, only a handful of episodes still exist: it's the adventures of Parisian detective Maigret, played by Rupert Davies (whose performance the character's creator, Georges Simenon, gave his enthusiastic seal of approval).  This is both the first and last time we'll be seeing him around here, as this is the show's very last episode.

It begins with a pre-titles sequence featuring Dr Javet (Michael Goodliffe) preparing to go on holiday with his wife Eveline (Constance Wake).  She doesn't seem all that enthusiastic about the trip and informs him that from now on she won't be helping his practice out with her money.  Meanwhile, receptionist Antoinette (Stephanie Bidmead) looks very sinister as she peers into a medicine cabinet.

Inspector Maigret has been reluctantly made to take some time off work after being shot in the arm by a gunman who also killed his assistant Torrence.  But much to the chagrin of his wife (Helen Shingler) he's still taking an interest in the caseload of his colleague Lucas (Ewen Solon), who's just been promoted to Inspector.

Lucas shows Maigret the paper, which reports that Torrence's killer has been brought to justice.  From the briefly-seen picture of the criminal we can see that he was played by the great Roger Delgado (though his actual performance is lost).

The latest case that Mme Maigret refuses to let her husband get involved in is that of Mme Javet, who's been found dead in bed, naked, at the surgery where she also lived with her husband by his junior partner Dr Gilbert Negrel (Neil McCallum).  It seems she flew back to Paris at some point shortly after departing for Nice with her husband.

Mme Javet's been dead for two days, and Gilbert insists he left work before she arrived on the night of her death, but the concierge (Ann Way) claims she didn't see him go.

The news reaches Dr Javet in Nice, and he informs Claire (Shelagh Fraser), housekeeper of his holiday home.  He claims to know nothing of his wife's return to Paris - he thought she'd gone to see friends in St Tropez.

Maigret discusses the case with local café owner Gaston (Barry Letts), who suspects foul play.  He's particularly curious about why Mme Javet was naked.  Realising he's hit on an important point, but aware he's not supposed to intervene, Maigret writes it on a postcard (with his left hand) and sends it to Lucas anonymously.

A young woman, Martine (strikingly googly-eyed Lucy Young) comes to the café and gets talking to Maigret - by a remarkable coincidence, she was just about to pay him a visit.  She's both the daughter of a lawyer friend of the detective and the fiancée of Gilbert Negrel.  An anonymous letter has fingered him as Mme Javet's killer, and she wants Maigret's help in clearing him.

Dr Javet informs the police that his wife had a heart condition, and was unable to withstand any excitement.  She was on medication, but not digitalis, which would have been fatal to her in the tiniest of quantities.  However, a huge dose of it has been found in her body - and an ampoule of it is missing from Javet's surgery.

Antoinette claims that Gilbert's been acting strangely the past few days: when a call came through from Mme Javet, he claimed it was from her husband.  Could the two have been having an affair? Lucas goes to see the young doctor: while he interviews him, Martine and Maigret hide in the next room and listen in.

Maigret goes to see the concierge, bribing her to talk.  He shows her a photo, and she insists she hasn't seen the man in it.  It turns out, however, that it's not of a man at all but of a bunch of broccoli.  So much for her supposedly infallible eyesight.

Lucas's assistant Lapointe (Neville Jason), suspects Antoinette ("a vicious woman with a kick") of being involved in the murder, and follows her (the location filming is all done in actual Paris).  They pass a florist's where Maigret is browsing, and he reveals to Lapointe that he's the mystery man who's been sending Lucas postcards suggesting lines of enquiry into the case.

Lucas, meanwhile, has gone to Nice to interview Claire (I don't know if this is actual Nice): "I'm only his housekeeper," she tells him, "Only his housekeeper".  From this we readily glean that she wasn't only his housekeeper.

Returning to Paris, Lucas goes to see Javet, who tells him he thought his wife had a lover, and behaves in a very furtive manner.  As well he might, seeing as he's got Antoinette in the bedroom.

Mme Maigret has found one of her husband's postcards, and insists that they go away on holiday before he overexcites himself.  But he's determined to see the case through, and invites Gilbert and Martine over, forcing the doctor to admit to his fiancée that he was sleeping with Mme Javet - though he insists it was purely out of pity due to how badly she was treated by her husband.  He insists he didn't kill her, but claims that she collapsed when he tried to finish with her, and that he gave her medication - though he can't be certain he didn't give her digitalis by mistake.

While Lucas tries to get to the bottom of the case, Maigret calmly explains the finer points of chess to the distraught Martine.

Claire comes to Paris to be interviewed, and Lucas is finally able to use Antoinette's jealousy of Javet's other lover to make her reveal that it was the doctor who murdered his wife, with her help.

We end with the Maigrets preparing to go away, and Lucas revealing with a postcard of his own that he knew Maigret was behind the anonymous postcards all the time.

Lovely stuff, with such warm performances from regulars Davies, Solon and Shingler that it feels a terrible shame we won't be seeing them (at least in these roles) again.  The programme concludes with a brilliantly inventive set of end titles.

Wednesday 25 December

Merry Christmas!

...And what could be more festive than a Hitler impression, courtesy of Len Fairclough?

Coronation Street remains, to this day, a staple element of the Christmas Day television schedules, but things were a little bit different in 1963.  Instead of bringing long-burning storylines to a sensational climax as is usually the drill nowadays it simply centres around a festive knees-up at the mission hall.  Len and Harry Hewitt are decorating it ready for Dennis Tanner's Christmas Extravaganza.  News is buzzing round the street that the centrepiece of the evening is due to be a "This Is Your Life" for one of the Street's residents.  But who? The episode's first act revolves around how various members of the show's dramatis personae react to the possibility it could be them.  Miss Nugent seems deeply uneasy at the prospect.  Could there be some terrible secret she wants to keep hidden?

Perpetual attention-seeker Martha Longhurst, meanwhile, would love it to be her.  "Then we might hear the true story of Lillian Wilkes," suggests Ena Sharples, mysteriously.

Martha suggests that Ena could be the subject: "Well, I'd give them their money's worth, especially if they sent to Australia for Cousin Letty.  I'd tell her what I thought about her and I wouldn't care who was listening."

Dennis's mother, meanwhile has one commandment for her son in case it's her he plans to spring the surprise on: "NO AMERICANS!"

As the neighbours convene in the mission hall, they receive the heartfelt thanks of Dennis's protegé Walter Potts, who's off to London to embark on a pop career under the name of Brett Falcon.

Indeed, actor Chris Sandford's role in Coronation Street led to short-lived chart success.  At the time of broadcast he was at number 17 in the hit parade with his single "Not Too Little - Not Too Much"

Dennis reveals the identity of his victim - it's Annie Walker! The most comfortable of all the Street's residents with being the centre of attention, she laps it up.  The voyage through her past begins with a recorded message from Mr Forsyth-Jones, a posh bloke who'd stayed at the Rovers some time previously.

We get to see images of the young Doris Speed (who looks almost exactly like the old Doris Speed)...

...and the backstory of the Street is sketched in, with the information that Annie and Jack took over the Rovers in February (or was it January?) 1939, with Annie cementing her place as the monarch of the Street once Jack was called up to serve in the war (Ena, who along with Minnie and Martha was Annie's first customer, is convinced it was January).

Drawing an anecdote out of Minnie Caldwell proves an agonising process for Dennis.  Eventually she remembers Annie giving she and her companions drinks on the house as she'd forgotten to bring enough money with her (Ena insists she can't remember this happening at all).

The guest Annie's most pleased to see is probably Edgar Nuttall, director of the St Agnes Amateur Operatic Society, and one of the few people to truly recognise her star quality.

Annie and Jack's children - jack-the-lad Billy and snobbish Annie clone Joan - have also made the journey back to Weatherfield, from the distant climes of Chiswick and Derby respectively.  Annie's mortified to have them apprised of her turn as Lady Godiva in the Co-Op Pageant of the Ages (which sounds like possibly the greatest event in history).

Slightly underwhelming guest of honour is regular Street returnee Esther Hayes, who it seems was the first person in the Street ever to talk to Annie.  She's bidding goodbye as she's moving to Glasgow (this doesn't stop her popping back every few years).

The show concludes with a rousing chorus of "For She's a Jolly Good Fellow", instigated by Ena Sharples, of all people.  When Martha questions this uncharacteristic show of enthusiasm for Mrs Walker her friend reveals herself to be as pragmatic as ever: "This might get us another three free drinks."

Directly following Coronation Street on ITV is Christmas Startime, the stars in question being Richard Hearne, Bruce Forsyth, David Nixon, Charlie Cairoli, Bernard Braden & Barbara Kelly, Pearl Carr & Teddy Johnson and Acker Bilk.  After that, the Street's Arthur Lowe plays the title role in Mr Pickwick, a new Dickens adaptation.  The BBC's Christmas presents to viewers include Frankie Howerd visiting sick children, a compilation of Disney clips (not yet billed as Disney Time), Billy Smart's Circus, Terry Scott, Hugh Lloyd and Reg Varney in Dick Whittington and Christmas Night with the Stars, which features special festive mini-editions of some of the channel's most popular shows, including The Black and White Minstrel Show, Dixon of Dock Green, Dick Emery, Hugh and I, It's a Square World and Marriage Lines.

Thursday 26 December

It's Boxing Day here at TV Minus 50, but sadly I've no special Christmassy fare to present, just the same old nonsense we get any other Thursday.

This week's Space Patrol introduces us to a character I hope we're going to see more of (as is the way with Space Patrol, we've seen the puppet playing him many times before).  Patra (not to be confused with the 90s singer of the same name) is a Venusian scientist whose walrus moustache belies his extremely feminine voice.  We join him giving the Venusian president a lecture on the evolution of the planet's Tula fish (as in Tula mayonnaise, I suppose).  It's not simply an academic matter - in just a few years the Tula have evolved at a rate that would normally take millions  "They're changing into something that could almost be called - human!" announces Patra.  Well, that might be stretching things a bit, though their intelligence has vastly increased and their fins have transformed into something remarkably similar to arms.

Along with these changes, the normally harmless fish have become decidedly hostile to the people of Venus.  The president rushes to the bedside of a sailor who was pulled overboard and badly injured by one of the creatures.  "I tell you, these fish have brains!" he cries.

The president contacts Colonel Raeburn at Space Patrol to do something about the underwater menace.  And he's got his heart set on a particular course of action: for the United Galactic Organisation to "blow up the ocean and destroy every single fish in it!" Even Raeburn thinks this might be a tad drastic, and sends Larry Dart and his crew to have a look.  When the Galasphere submerges beneath the waves (who knew it could do that?) we get a proper look at the scaly fiends.  Larry even manages to kill one.

A probable explanation for the fish's rapid evolution is found in the shape of a giant heap of polydon, a building material that's been dumped by a local firm: the further away from this barrier, the less evolved the Tula appear to be.  Larry attempts to blow it up with depth charges, but the fish tamper with them before they can be exploded.  Frustrated by this defeat, Colonel Raeburn is moved to utter perhaps the most sublime dialogue yet heard in Space Patrol: "Outwitted by fish! We might have to use a nuclear explosion after all."  The situation proves too much for the Colonel, who's been generally a bit under the weather lately.  To Marla's extreme anguish, he collapses on his desk.  Raeburn's physician Dr Roberts reveals he secretly gave the Colonel a sedative in order to force him to rest (which all sounds very responsible).

This allows us a glimpse at Colonel Raeburn's bedroom (that fabric is extremely popular in 2100).

The Venusian president's put through with an urgent call demanding that he be allowed to set off a nuclear bomb (despite the potential loss of life and widespread contamination that will entail) - the fish are now walking, and attacking the people of seaside villages: "They're strangling everything within their reach!" (tragically, we don't get to see this scene for ourselves).  The sedated Colonel angrily refuses, threatening to kick Venus out of the UGO if he dares go ahead.  It turns out that the Colonel's actually talking in his sleep - if he'd been awake he'd have been more than happy to sanction the use of the bomb.

Fortunately, though, Larry's had an alternative idea in the interim, based on the Colonel's sedation.  The Galasphere sprays the entire ocean with knockout gas to incapacitate the Tula for long enough to blow up the polydon barrier.  It's not entirely clear how this is going to halt the killing spree of the already-evolved Tula, but everyone seems quite pleased by the outcome so it's probably best not to question it.

Disappointingly, there are no killer fish in sight at the next coastal resort we're visiting this evening.

Simon Templar's visiting the Riviera for the second time in as many weeks, but this time he's just planning to enjoy himself rather than catch any crooks.  But that wouldn't make for much of a Saint episode, so along comes his friend Bill (pointy-headed Gary Cockrell), an American jazz drummer.  Bill's engaged to the beautiful Meryl (Suzanne Neve), but their nuptials are looking increasingly far off, thanks to the extreme disapproval of Meryl's father, millionaire Elliot Vascoe (Sergeant Cork himself, John Barrie - who it's very strange to see with a naked top lip).

As well as refusing his consent to the marriage, Vascoe's flexed his muscles to have Bill banned from performing at any local venues - meaning he doesn't even have enough money to leave Monaco.  Bill's convinced Simon can do something to help, and the Saint soon starts work on a scheme to deal with Vascoe, an old adversary of his.

The millionaire has a vast art collection, which he's opening to the public in aid of charity.  As the press tour the gallery, it becomes clear that both his curator, Davos (Henry Vidon) and artist Delphine Chambers (Rachel Gurney), staying at Vascoe's villa to paint a portrait of Meryl, have reason to seek revenge on him.

As well as Vascoe (whose eternal enmity Simon earned by publicly accusing him of "knowing as much about art as a cow in a field"), there's another old acquaintance of the Saint's at the gallery in the form of former Scotland Yard detective Martin Grahame (Barry Keegan), now working as Vascoe's chief of security.  Paying a visit to the gallery, Simon antagonises Vascoe by betting that his supposedly impregnable gallery will be burgled within four days.

Both Vascoe and the members of the press assume Simon means he'll be doing the burgling, as does "the smartest police chief in Europe", Colonel Latignant, returning from last week's episode and played once more by Barrie's Sergeant Cork co-star Arnold Diamond.  Seeing them together in different roles is the most interesting aspect of the episode, and makes a good curtain-raiser for the new series of Cork, which starts on Saturday.

But, as Simon planned all along, a gang of local crooks, led by Jules Brant (Raymond Adamson), see the news of Simon's bet as an ideal opportunity to nick the treasures themselves and frame him for them.  To that end, they've managed to persuade Vascoe's chauffeur to work for them.  And they've got someone inside the villa as well...

Jules dispatches a heavy to keep Simon under guard for a couple of hours while he robs Vascoe, to ensure the Saint has no alibi for the time the crime's committed.

Simon, of course, rapidly disarms his guard - by getting him into this mind-boggling position.

As Simon heads to the villa, Latignant's men follow after him, but he manages to confuse them by transmitting his own messages to their radios.  Arnold Diamond hams it up a treat as the exasperated police chief.

Simon catches up with Jules, who's disarmed Vascoe's burglar alarm and nabbed a few prize exhibits.  If you ask me, the system doesn't look quite as secure as claimed.

Jules and Simon have an almighty ding-dong, thoroughly messing up Vascoe's garden while they're at it.

Having disposed of Jules, Simon returns the stolen items to Vascoe, and humiliates him by revealing the dislike his entire household feels for him - and exposing Delphine Chambers, deeply in debt to Jules, as the thief's accomplice.  But it seems that's not the only reason for her betrayal - she loves Vascoe, and was driven mad with frustration that he cared only for material things.

All ends happily with Vascoe undergoing a Scrooge-like change of heart, refusing to press charges against Delphine and welcoming Bill into his family.  Fairy Godfather Simon's work is done.

Friday 27 December

Finally this week, one of the BBC's most popular drama series, well into its second series but, due to its inevitably spotty presence in the archives, only now making its debut here.

Helpfully, tonight's episode begins with a caption telling us where and when we are.  We're then plunged into the sad story of young Betsie Keith (Mary Webster).  At first all seems to be going fine as she goes into labour attended by colourful midwife Mistress Niven (Effie Morrison).  Her handsome young husband Jamie (Michael Graham) sets off across several picturesque outdoor filming locations to fetch Dr Finlay (Bill Simpson) to her side.

Finlay arrives at the cottage, not expecting any problems with the birth.  But there's trouble getting the baby out: it's a big one, and Betsie has a narrow pelvis.  The effort causes Betsie to have a heart attack and die, and Finlay proves unable to save the baby either.

The doctor's understandably upset by the tragedy, and is counselled by his more experienced partner (in the business sense, you understand - though they do live together) Dr Cameron (Andrew Cruickshank).  In response to Finlay's lament that he wished he could have found out in advance Betsie had a heart condition, Cameron tells him about a device invented to do just that by a local man, James Mackenzie, who became a big success in London.

Finlay decides he needs to get hold of one of these polygraphs for himself, and manages to locate a second hand one.  Sceptical housekeeper Janet (Barbara Mullen) is his guinea pig.

It turns out Janet's quite experienced in having cuffs placed on her wrist: "My grandfather, Alexander MacPherson of Stornoway, had a great affection for handcuffs and other strange devices."  It turns out he was a customs man who did a bit of smuggling on the side.  He tried out a pair on Janet and she was stuck in them for three weeks.  Anyway, Janet's amazed to see her heart rate reproduced on a bit of paper, and Finlay's alarmed to discover an irregularity.  He quizzes Janet about her health: "Do you get out of breath after strenuous exercise?" "I do... and so does everybody else I know!"

Cameron takes one look at the graph and diagnoses the irregularity as nothing Janet need worry about.  He agrees to be Finlay's next subject - it turns out he was one of the first the machine was ever tried out on when it was first invented.

There follows now a montage (of the sort that would have been quite the thing in the cinema back in 1928) featuring various worried patients getting the polygraph treatment from evangelical Dr Finlay.

Cameron's decidedly unhappy with Finlay putting all his faith into the machine's results, with the most serious possible diagnosis always resulting.  But he still has his own patients to deal with, including Molly Anderson (Rosalie Westwater), who thinks, after years of having thought she wasn't able to, she might be pregnant.  But she's a bit old to be having a baby

 (Ms Westwater looks considerably older than 37, adding an unintentional edge of humour to Cameron's assurance that no one would believe it).

Cameron has to dash off to deliver a new baby before Molly can come for the results of her pregnancy test, so he asks Finlay to give them to her.  It's positive, but Finlay, with the case of Betsie Keith still on his mind, can't resist the temptation to hook her up to the polygraph: the results are concerning, and he decides the bout of rheumatic fever she had some years before have left her unable to survive childbirth.

He doesn't tell her this, instead going to her husband (Hugh Evans).  Mr Anderson is determined that his wife should take precedence over the baby, and is willing to go ahead with Finlay's idea of inducing a miscarriage.

Cameron's furious with Finlay's interference and goes to see the Andersons - he's convinced that, with the right precautions, Molly and the baby will both be fine.  Anderson's still concerned about his wife, but she insists on going through with the pregnancy.

The time comes for Molly to go into hospital, and she has a problem-free labour resulting in a perfectly healthy baby.  Cameron tells Finlay he's known about Molly's heart problems for years but was convinced that as they hadn't troubled her since her initial bout of rheumatic fever.  Finlay is utterly livid that he's wasted the gargantuan sum of £30 on a useless piece of equipment.

Cameron still thinks the machine has its uses, though, and tries to convince Finlay of this (not Andrew Cruickshank taking a surreptitious look at something off-camera (the autocue?) in the shot below).

Cameron takes Finlay and his polygraph along on a visit to querulous old Mrs Paton (Agnes Lauchlan), who's impressed to see that her money's being used on modernising the practice.  It's clear that there's nothing wrong with Mrs Paton, but rather than telling her this, Cameron uses the polygraph to blind her with science.

In stark contrast to its tragic beginning, the episode ends with Finlay pursuing a chortling Cameron back to Arden House, accompanied by comedy chase music.  He's so pleased with his new use for the polygraph that he offers to pay for half of it.  But nobody's yet considered using it as a lie detector...

Full Radio Times listings for this week's BBC programmes can be found here, while you can see a full copy of the week's TV Times here.

And to play us out...

Here are the only two Christmas-themed songs in the top 40, Dora Bryan's "All I Want for Christmas is a Beatle" (at 21) and Chuck Berry's "Run Rudolph Run" (at 39).  The Beatles themselves have this year's Christmas number 1 with "I Want to Hold Your Hand", and they're also at number 2 with "She Loves You").  You can see the full chart here.