Paul Temple (1969-71)

Paul Temple had originally been created by Francis Durbridge for a BBC radio series in 1938. The character later featured in novels, a comic strip and four late 1940s movies (including Calling Paul Temple and Send for Paul Temple which are both great fun). In 1969 it became a BBC TV series. The second and subsequent series were co-productions with a German company, Taurus Films.

The Paul Temple TV series was intended to offer a mix of action and adventure with some lighthearted fun and it proved to be extremely popular, all of which horrified the BBC. Despite its popularity they axed the series and promptly destroyed most of the episodes. Only sixteen of the fifty-two episodes survive, although it is believed that Taurus Films preserved other episodes in German-dubbed versions. 

It’s particularly unfortunate that five of the sixteen surviving episodes exist only in relatively poor quality black-and-white versions, since this is a series that really made the most of the possibilities of colour filming. 

Paul Temple is a bestselling crime novelist who solve real crimes in his spare time, a formula that has been used in various novels and TV series, most notably ITC’s Jason King a couple of years later. Jason King in fact is basically a much more extravagant version of Paul Temple. As portrayed in the TV series by Francis Matthews Paul Temple also has a taste for fashionable clothing, fine wines and food, and exotic places. Unlike Jason King he has a wife, Steve (Ros Drinkwater), so his tastes don’t include chasing women. Matthews gets to wear some truly outrageous clothing (which apparently he chose personally) - this was the great age of cravats for men. Ros Drinkwater’s wardrobe is pretty impressive also in a late Swinging 60s sort of way.

The entire first season is lost. The earliest surviver is the third episode of season two, Games People Play. On a Mediterranean holiday Paul and Steve encounter movie star Mark Hill (played with considerable flair by George Baker). British television in the 60s displays both a fascination and an anxiety for what was then called the Permissive Society  and the rising tide of violence and anti-social behaviour. Mark Hill represents all of this. He is a wealthy and dangerous degenerate. Mark though goes beyond casual sex, booze  and drugs. His dangerous passion is for playing games. Playing games with people. Mark’s games are the kind that require a victim. Picking Paul Temple’s wife as as victim proves to be a little unwise. Paul Temple can play games as well, and he plays to win. It could have been a fine episode. The problem is that it’s a bit rushed - 50 minutes wasn’t quite enough time to explore the idea fully - and the ending is contrived and unsatisfying.

Corrida is interesting, dealing with gangsters and bullfighting in the Camargue in the south of France.

The Specialists is quite a good story of business plotting and assassination. It’s highlighted by some wonderful interplay between Sammy Carson (George Sewell) and Lewis (Garfield Morgan), both gangsters who might be on the side of the angels, well partly at least. In fact George Sewell became a semi-regular cast member, appearing in a total of eleven episodes. We never really find out to what extent Sammy Carson was, or perhaps still is, a  crook. He certainly has far too many underworld connections to be a respectable citizen but he is a loyal and exceptionally useful friend to both Paul and Steve Temple, and Sewell was always an actor worth watching.

Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly? was written by Dennis Spooner, always a promising sign. It’s a delightfully complicated espionage story about a feckless Irish artist named Kelly who seems to be caught in the middle of a international conspiracy and also finds himself accused of murder. He happens to be an old friend of Steve’s so Paul finds himself somewhat reluctantly trying to help out although he doesn’t realise just how complex a situation he’s stumbled into. A guest starring performance by the always delightful Richard Vernon is a highlight.

Motel is a terrific little episode. A strange variety of people turn up at a remoter Scottish hotel during a blizzard. And they keep turning up. Each guest seems to be slightly more eccentric than the previous one. And among these guests are Paul and Steve Temple. Also among the guests is a bank robber. In fact any or all of the guests may be accomplices of said bank robber. Or they may be police officers, or amateurs after the reward money, or even genuine guests there for the fishing. The situation becomes more and more farcical but underneath the farce there is a serious side - there is a great deal of money at stake, enough money to kill for. The whole situation is treated with a wonderfully light touch. Superb television.

Cue Murder! is even better. The entire episode takes place in a television studio where Paul is participating in a panel show that attempts to solve previously unsolved crimes. This setting works very well, the plot is nicely convoluted and fine supporting performances add to the fun. Philip Madoc is typically and delightfully over-the-top as the host of the TV series.

Death of Fasching was one of Francis Matthews’ favourite episodes and it’s easy to see why. This is a somewhat surreal and slightly experimental episode in which nothing is as it appears to be. The surreal touches invite comparison to The Avengers but in some ways this story is even more daring and ambiguous in narrative terms than anything attempted by The Avengers. Paul and Steve are in Munich for Fasching, a sort of Carnival month in which the normally staid inhabitants of the city let themselves go. Perhaps some of them go just a little bit overboard. There is something very strange going on but the more Paul and Steve find out the more puzzling the whole situation becomes.

Catch Your Death employs a favoured idea of 1960s thrillers - the theft of a virus from a research establishment. The puzzling thing though is that the would-be thieves seem to have been after a virus that does nothing more dangerous than cause the common cold.

Ricochet is a so-so story although it is amusing to see an action adventure story involving coffee smuggling and toboggan racing - both of which are apparently very very serious matters in Switzerland!

The Guilty Must Die is a delightfully twisted tale of double crosses and triple crosses and dangerous romantic entanglements. An old friend of Steve’s is engaged to be married to be married to smooth-talking but sleazy used car salesman Peter Blane (Patrick Mower in a gloriously over-the-top performance). Steve finds herself trying to warn her friend that Peter is not merely sleazy but also has a very shady past but it seems that love is blind. Or is it?

Paul Temple really is a treat for fans of classic British action adventure television. The location shooting (yes, actual location shooting) in exotic places is a major plus. This series looks stylish and classy. Francis Matthews is a perfect suave playboy crime-fighter hero (and he is certainly the definitive screen Paul Temple) and he and Ros Drinkwater make a great team. Judging by the episodes that have survived the quality of the scripts, although variable, was often very high indeed. It’s all great fun. Very highly recommended.

Network’s excellent DVD release includes all sixteen surviving episodes. It doesn't include a huge amount in the way of extras but the interview with Francis Matthews is certainly worthwhile.

The Outer Limits - The Sixth Finger (1963)

I’ve talked recently about a couple of the most admired episodes of The Twilight Zone and Thriller. Now it seems appropriate to consider a highly regarded episode of that other notable anthology television series, The Outer Limits. I’ve chosen the fifth episode of the first season, The Sixth Finger (written by Ellis St. Joseph), originally broadcast in 1963.

The Outer Limits ran from 1963 to 1965 and differed from the other popular anthology series in having a mostly science fictional slant. It was a pretty uneven series and although the ideas were often brilliant the special effects didn’t always do them justice. You don’t need expensive or elaborate special effects to do science fiction well but unfortunately the kinds of stories this series attempted often tended to be stories that really did need fairly convincing effects.

In spite of these weaknesses The Outer Limits was a bold and innovative series and often breathtakingly ambitious. And The Sixth Finger aims very high indeed - it deals with a million years of human evolution!

Professor Mathers (Edward Mulhare) is a scientist working on the problem of human evolution. The problem with human evolution as he sees it is that it is much too slow. He wants to speed it up. Speed it up dramatically. He believes that our only chance to avoid self-destruction is to become much smarter and we need to do it now. Professor Mathers conducts his researches in a small village in Wales. 

He believes he has found the ideal subject in coal miner Gwyllim Griffiths (David McCallum). Gwyllim is reasonably intelligent and ambitious and he desperately wants to escape from life as a coal miner. He is also filled with resentment and anger but it doesn’t occur to Professor Mathers that this might be a problem. 

The experiment is a success. Gwyllim evolves thousands of years in a few seconds. He is now super-intelligent. That’s a good thing. He is also still filled with resentment and anger. This proves to be a bad thing. He has super-normal intelligence but he has some very ordinary character flaws. Those character flaws were not particularly dangerous when he was just a young coal miner. Now they have become a real problem.

You see the experiment had some unexpected results. Gwyllim has evolved some disturbing powers - he can read minds and he can inflict injury or even death at a distance purely by mental means. Given that he has the character flaws mentioned above he is now a very dangerous young man. The question is, is intelligence enough to compensate for everyday human weaknesses? An even more urgent question is - can Professor Mathers deal with the potential problem he has created? Is there any way to control Gwyllim? And what if Gwyllim decides he’d like to do some more evolving?

It’s a brave attempt to tackle some serious issues - intelligence versus emotions, the possibility of human perfectibility, the dangers of too much progress too soon. There are some scientific absurdities - there are some fundamental misunderstandings about how evolution actually works. Despite this it does have some real impact. It’s not a complete success but it’s typical of The Outer Limits in its willingness to tackle Big Ideas. And David McCallum does a pretty fair job, particularly when encumbered by some drastic makeup effects.

The Outer Limits was always interesting even when is stumbled a little. The stumbles were generally due to excessive ambition and it’s easy to forgive a show that was genuinely trying to push the boundaries of television science fiction. What’s most surprising about this series if how often it actually succeeded. The Sixth Finger might be only a partial success but it’s a bold and interesting partial success. Recommended.

Thriller - Pigeons from Hell (1961)

Pigeons from Hell was first screened in 1961 as episode 36 from the first season of NBC’s anthology series Thriller which ran from 1960 to 1962. It’s widely considered to be one of the best, if not the very best, episode of the entire series.

It helps that it happens to be based on one of the best short stories of Robert E. Howard (1906-1936), the creator of Conan the Barbarian.

Two young men, brothers in fact, take shelter in an isolated decaying southern mansion after their car breaks down. The most sinister thing about the mansion, curiously, is the presence of the pigeons. Something seems rather wrong about the birds. 

The two brothers, Timothy (Brandon de Wilde) and Johnny (David Whorf) settle down for the night but one of them will not live until morning. When Sheriff Buckner (Crahan Denton) arrives the surviving brother, Timothy, has a strange tale to tell. Johnny tried to kill him, but Johnny was already dead. This is just the beginning of a night of terror.

There are several things that make this episode notable. The flat lighting for which television in 1961 was renowned is nowhere in evidence here. Lionel Lindon’s superb cinematography is moody and atmospheric with an extraordinarily bold use of shadows.

It also pushes the edge of the envelope as far as gore is concerned. By later standards it’s mild and it’s certainly not gratuitous or excessive but in 1961 it was pretty startling.

Director John Newland had an interesting career in television. He’s best remembered as the host of the paranormal anthology series One Step Beyond (1959-61) and he directed no less than 96 episodes of that series. Pigeons from Hell may well be the best thing he ever did.

Which brings us back to those pigeons. Making pigeons sinister and frightening isn’t easy but Newland manages the trick very effectively. There are moments that anticipate some of the most famous scenes in Hitchcock’s The Birds and while I’m not going to claim that Newland was in the same league as Hitchcock there are scenes in Pigeons from Hell that can quite legitimately be compared to Hitchcock’s film. There are also some definite thematic links to Psycho.

Newland makes masterful use of the setting. There’s a wonderful decaying staircase in the mansion. We know, and the characters know, that as long as they remain on the ground floor they’re safe. Whenever they climb that staircase they’re in danger. But they can’t solve the mystery unless they do climb that staircase. It’s almost like a bridge from the everyday world to a nightmare world and Newland exploits it to the full.

The pacing is leisurely, but deliberately so. We get one big scare early on and after that the atmosphere of menace and evil builds slowly towards further big scares that we know are certainly coming.

It’s interesting to compare this episode to the much-admired episode of The Twilight Zone I wrote about recently - The Invaders. Both episodes show that by the early 60s television was certainly coming of age. Both are ambitious and take risks stylistically. The Invaders was written by Richard Matheson. Pigeons from Hell was based on a Robert E. Howard story. These are two writers who understood the mechanism of terror very well indeed, and understood that the less obvious terrors are the most frightening.

Brandon de Wilde was only 19 at the time but gives a fine performance, ably supported by Crahan Denton. Both actors are willing to go a little over-the-top when it’s necessary.

Pigeons from Hell lives up to its reputation as one of the finest moments of the Thriller series. Great television.

The A-Team, season 1 (1983)

With its over-the-top but very cartoonish violence and its general air of mayhem and craziness The A-Team became one of the legendary cult TV series of the 80s. It ran on NBC from 1983 to 1987.

Mercenaries had figured in several great cult movies of the late 60s and 70s such as Dark of the Sun and The Wild Geese so it was perhaps only a matter of time before they featured in an action adventure TV series. The A-Team is a US Special Forces unit that had served in Vietnam but one of their more spectacular missions went badly wrong. Actually the mission was a success but the officer who ordered the mission got himself killed so the team had no proof that their mission was authorised, and as a result they found themselves facing a court-martial. They escaped from custody before the court-martial could be convened and now they make their living as commandos-for-hire.

The A-Team comprises Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith (George Peppard), mechanical wizard Sergeant B. A. Baracus (Mr T), smooth-talking con-man Lieutenant Templeton "Face" Peck (played by Tim Dunigan in the pilot and by Dirk Benedict in the series) and insane (literally insane) pilot “Howling Mad" Murdock (Dwight Schultz). 

Their nemesis is military policeman Colonel Lynch (William Lucking) who is obsessed with tracking them down and forcing them to face that court-martial.

The pilot episode, Mexican Slayride, gives us much of the background. Nobody is really sure the A-Team even exists but feisty girl reporter Amy Allen (Melinda Culea) believes that they do. And she just happens to need a team of commandos. Fellow reporter Al Massey (William Windom) has been kidnapped by a gang of Mexican bandits. Amy is determined to free him. Massey had discovered something big, something that was more than just a simple gang of bandits.

The A-Team is willing to help her although they do expect to receive a token payment - of $150,000. Transportation to Mexico won’t be a problem. They will just “borrow” a Gulfstream executive jet. The big problem will be persuading B. A. Baracus to board the jet. He is terrified of flying and their usual method is to forcibly drug him and then strap him down to his seat (he needs to be strapped down so he won’t kill them when he regains consciousness). Getting the other equipment they will need involves conning the Mexican Film Commission into thinking they’re big time Hollywood film-makers and they need a few simple props for their movie - just little things like a crop-dusting aircraft, some armour plate and perhaps an artillery piece or two. 

Mexican Slayride is a non-stop roller coaster ride of craziness and mayhem involving the expenditure of thousands of rounds of ammunition and countless explosions and wrecked vehicles. It establishes one of the this show’s trademarks - despite all the shooting and all the stuff getting blown up nobody ever seems to get seriously hurt. There’s an immense amount of violence but no blood. 

This first season covers many of the favourite obsessions of its time period. In Children of Jamestown it’s a religious cult. In Pros and Cons it’s the ever-popular Evil Redneck Cops in the Deep South and in A Small and Deadly War it’s corrupt cops (although the series goes to extraordinary lengths to assure us over and over again but it’s just a Few Bad Apples). 

Breaking someone out of captivity is a trope that the series did tend to over-use just a little (although having said that I have to admit that The A-Team usually does this with style) so A Small and Deadly War is all the more refreshing for avoiding that particular concept.

Black Day at Bad Rock (a nod to the 1950s Spencer Tracy movie Bad Day at Black Rock) covers another obsession of the day - biker gangs. B. A. has been shot up in an operation and the team stops at a small California town to get medical help for him but the doctor thinks it’s a bit strange that his friends claim it was a hunting accident - what kind of game do you hunt with a .50 cal machine-gun? She calls the cops and Hannibal and Face get themselves arrested just as a biker gang is about to descend upon the town. Much mayhem naturally ensues.

The Rabbit Who Ate Las Vegas sees the A-Team up against gambling racketeers. A brilliant mathematician has invented a fool-proof method for beating the odds at the gambling tables and not surprisingly the gambling bosses take a very dim view of this. The A-Team have to rescue the mathematician.

The Out-of-Towners is basically another retelling of The Seven Samurai with frightened storekeepers in Manhattan employing the A-Team to protect them against the oppression of extortion racketeers. West Coast Turnaround sees the team helping out a farmer who can’t get his produce to market. Not much of a story this time and this is definitely a lesser episode. 

A mission in Guatemala goes badly wrong for the A-Team in Holiday in the Hills. Murdock manages to get them out but their aircraft crashes. Maybe stealing an aircraft that was due for repair was not such a great idea? They crash in South Carolina only to find themselves hunted by hillbillies. Murdock has a plan for getting them out. He’s seen the movie Flight of the Phoenix and he figures that if survivors of a plane crash in a movie can build a new one out of the wreckage then they should be able to do the same thing.

In One More Time we’re back to the breaking out of captivity thing again although this time instead of having to worry about being pursued by the US Government they’re working for the government. Which can be even worse. Till Death Do Us Part looks like being yet another retread of the same basic trope but there’s end up being more to the story. And the helicopter chase is pretty cool. 

The first season of The A-Team works because it starts out being an outlandish cartoonish adventure romp series and that’s what it remains. The temptation to take itself even moderately seriously is valiantly resisted. It’s unashamedly and defiantly silly.

The acting is perfect. OK, maybe Dwight Schultz pushes the crazy thing a bit too hard at times but he manages to be genuinely amusing. Dirk Benedict is delightfully smooth and charming. Mr T is superb. B. A. Baracus is a big scary intimidating guy and he’s plenty tough when he needs to be but underneath he’s a big softie. Mr T gets this across without ever crossing the line into over-sentimentality. George Peppard chews every piece of scenery he can get his hands on. This is very different to his earlier TV hit Banacek although Peppard's trademark self-confidence is equally apparent in both series. All the characters are caricatures but they’re meant to be. They’re cartoon characters and all the cast members understand this and play it accordingly.

The stunts are nothing if not spectacular. They must have wrecked hundreds of cars and other assorted vehicles making this series. No episode is complete without its full complement of explosions and cars flying through the air. The stunts, like everything else, are deliberately exaggerated and cartoonish and that’s why they work.

The A-Team is a roller-coaster ride of non-stop mayhem all done with tongue planted firmly in cheek. Terrific fun and as long as you don’t take it the slightest bit seriously it’s highly recommended.

The Twilight Zone - The Invaders (1961)

I’m not the most enthusiastic fan of The Twilight Zone but I do have fond memories of some of the episodes written by Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont. I’m particularly fond of Matheson’s episodes so I figured I’d revisit some of his more memorable contributions.

First cab off the rank will be The Invaders, episode 15 of season 2. It’s generally considered to be one of the best Twilight Zone episodes ever. We’ll see how well it stands up.

The story takes place in an isolated farmhouse where a woman, played by Agnes Moorehead, lives alone. She hears some strange noises and upon investigating discovers a flying saucer on her roof. A very small flying saucer. With two very small crew members. They might be robots or they might be aliens. Either way they’re about six inches high. Somehow this episode has to make such an absurd situation terrifying. And it succeeds. These two small crew members are well armed. Against creatures their own size their weapons would be devastating. Even against a woman so much huger than themselves they can still be pretty nasty.

Adding to the terror is of course the impossibility of communication. She has no idea what these creatures want. All she is sure of is that they seem pretty hostile. Of course she, in her fear and confusion, has done things that might seem pretty hostile to them. In any case it now seems to be a fight for survival, with the odds very uncertain.

There is of course a plot twist, a very famous plot twist, but rest assured I do not intend to reveal it.

This was a remarkably bold piece of television for 1961. There is only one cast member, and she has no dialogue at all. The entire story has to be told visually, and everything we learn about Agnes Moorehead’s character and her emotional reactions we have to learn without the benefit of dialogue. Fortunately, thanks to a powerhouse performance by Moorehead, a great script by Matheson and inspired work by director Douglas Heyes, it all works superbly.

Playing the entire episode without dialogue was no doubt made easier for Moorehead by the fact that she had studied mime under Marcel Marceau.

The look of this episode is just as bold as the concept. It has a feel more typical of film noir or gothic horror than science fiction, all shadows and very dimly lit. Much of the action is shot so as to appear to be taking place by candlelight. In 1961 flat lighting was the norm in television, partly because broadcast quality in those days was rather poor. It was a brave television director of photography who attempted moody atmospheric lighting and most were terrified of shadows because of the risk that viewers would end up seeing nothing but darkness. George T. Clemens was clearly not afraid to take such risks and his daring pays off.

The flying saucer is in fact the spacecraft model used in the classic sci-fi film Forbidden Planet. The tiny aliens/robots were designed by Douglas Heyes and built, strangely enough, by the make-up department. They were, obviously, puppets and they were worked by Douglas Heyes himself.

It all looks splendid today on Blu-Ray and the Blu-Ray presentation includes no less than four audio commentary tracks! It’s a half-hour episode so expecting the viewer to spend a further two hours listening to four commentaries might seem rather optimistic but this is (quite rightly) regarded as one of the all-time great television science fiction episodes so such an expectation is probably justified. The Invaders really is good enough to make such an effort worthwhile.

This episode not only stands up remarkably well it also remains as boldly unconventional and quirky (both in content and style) as it was in 1961. For all my reservations about The Twilight Zone I have to say that The Invaders is superb television.

Zodiac (1974)

Zodiac was one of several attempts by British television in the late 60s and early 70s to come up with a formula that would successfully add the paranormal or the supernatural to a mystery or action adventure series. ITC had some success with a ghostly private detective in Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) in 1969. Baffled was an Anglo-American attempt that got no further than a pilot episode in 1973 although it actually had considerable potential. Zodiac, which lasted just six episodes in 1974, was Thames Television’s foray into this sub-genre.

Detective-Inspector Gradley (Anton Rodgers) teams up with astrologer Esther Jones (Anouska Hempel) in this series which seems to have aimed mostly for gentle comedy.

Anton Rodgers was better known for situation comedies like Fresh Fields. He was certainly adept at light comedy although he makes a somewhat unlikely policeman. On the other hand Gradley is supposed to be an unconventional policeman. He was all set to be an idle young man living on a fortune he’d inherited until he discovered the rather disturbing terms of his grandfather’s  will - he only gets the fortune as long as he remains a serving police officer. As a result he has a slightly casual and even haphazard approach to the job. He doesn’t really think he’s all that suited to being a police officer but he doesn’t have much choice and he’s the sort of chap who accepts such things philosophically. That all works well enough although he’s still perhaps just a little too gentle and effete and aristocratic and laidback.

Anouska Hempel has the advantage of looking the way you might expect a 1970s astrologer to look, or perhaps she really looks more like a model who might dabble in astrology. 

The first episode, Death of a Crab, introduces the two lead characters. Gradley is investigating the murder of a man found in the bath of a penthouse flat only it wasn’t his fault and how he came to be there is as much a mystery as his death. Esther Jones is a suspect. Gradley is pretty sceptical when he discovers she’s an astrologer although his scepticism soon starts to fade. 

The most difficult problem for this type of series is to get the tone right. It can’t be too jokey and there’s a danger in overdoing the whimsy but on the other hand you don’t want to take things too seriously. Initial impressions suggest that Zodiac doesn’t take itself quite seriously enough. There are other problems. Unless you’re aiming for pure comedy there’s not much point in introducing paranormal elements unless there’s at least some spookiness or some definite sense of the uncanny. There isn’t quite enough of either of these elements in the first episode.

Also if you’re going to have a crime-solving team of a policeman and an astrologer you need to convince the viewer that the policeman really could not solve these cases without the astrologer. I’m not sure that Zodiac entirely succeeds in doing this. The astrology stuff doesn’t seem to be quite central enough to the plot of Death of a Crab.

Zodiac was created by Roger Marshall, one of the best TV writers in the business. This was a change of pace for him which was presumably what attracted him to the idea. Marshall was known for writing clever and witty scripts for series like The Avengers and Zodiac demonstrates a certain amount of exactly the same sort of wit. Marshall had also created the superb Public Eye series and the sympathy and humanity with which he imbued that series is also in evidence in Zodiac.

The good news is that the chemistry between the two leads works surprisingly well and they both handle the witty banter with assurance. 

This is fundamentally a good-natured series. Gradley is an unlikely cop but he’s a nice fellow and while Esther has a few hippie tendencies she’s a pretty nice person as well.

Episode two, The Cool Aquarian, is more interesting and a considerable improvement. It relies a good deal on coincidence but then when you’re dealing with astrology maybe the reliance on coincidence could have been quite intentional. A hard-driving businessman receives a ransom demand after a young woman is kidnapped. Which is very strange since he’s never even heard of the young lady concerned. In this episode the series starts to come together quite nicely. The paranormal/psychic/astrological elements play an important plot function but without dominating too much - good old-fashioned psychology and logical deduction help as well. The banter between the two leads seems more relaxed and more natural and the sparks start to fly between them in a very pleasing way.

Roger Marshall wrote the first two episodes himself. The third episode, The Strength of Gemini, was penned by Philip Broadley - Marshall was obviously determined to get hold the best possible writers for this series. In this episode a scoundrel is making use of Esther’s astrological skills her his own purposes although exactly how sinister those purposes might be is not clear at first. Either way Esther is outraged and Gradley has to admit that there might be something there that he should look into. It is a clever scam and it’s a good story, helped along by a delightfully oily guest starring turn by Norman Eshley.

Episode four, Saturn's Rewards, was written by Pat Hoddinott and is even better. An MP witnesses a murder but has his own reasons for not wanting to call the police. He will discover that this murder strikes a lot closer to home than he expected while Esther absolutely refuses to believe that a friend’s new boyfriend is not a Scorpio. He has to be a Scorpio. She just won’t give up on this, which turns out to be just as well. This is another episode that neatly combines astrological clues with ordinary police work and it has some neat twists.

Sting Sting Scorpio (written by Roger Marshall) opens with the murder of Madame Lavengro, an elderly astrologer in Brighton. At least Esther is convinced it’s murder although it appeared to be a heart attack. Esther has the bright idea of taking over Madame Lavengro’s shop in the hope of finding a clue although Gradley warns her that playing amateur detective can have consequences. Esther believes she’s uncovered a vital lead when she does a tarot reading for a maid in a leading Brighton hotel. A hotel in which a series of robberies has taken place. it’s another episode that succeeds quite well in integrating the occult and detective story elements.

The Horns of the Moon, written by Peter Yeldham, goes further than any of the other episodes in the direction of pure comedy and with guest appearances by capable comic talents such as Peter Jones, Graham Crowden and Michelle Dotrice it works splendidly. A retired general who runs a merchant bank ends up in the deep freeze. Gradley is sure he has the murderer pegged and Esther is equally convinced that he’s wrong. Although played for comedy the mystery plot is serviceable enough with at least one nice twist. The astrological angle is a little weaker in this episode but it’s still there and still plays a reasonably important part. This is a particularly delightful episode.

I mentioned coincidence earlier. Strange coincidences just keep on turning up in these stories. They’re a feature of just about every episode. Roger Marshall was far too experienced as a writer and producer to allow such basic writing mistakes to keep cropping up. The more I watch of this series the more convinced I am that this is an absolutely deliberate technique intended to give the show a subtly spooky feel and since the series deals with astrology I think it’s probably a quite justifiable technique. It’s a neat way of emphasising that slightly odd things happen around Esther Jones.

Zodiac is a series that has to accepted on its own terms. It’s not a conventional cop show but while there’s a good deal of humour and romance it’s not out-and-out romantic comedy or a full-blooded spoof either. It’s not a supernatural adventure series in the style of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) - the paranormal elements are not allowed to dominate too much and in fact they could almost be explained away by coincidence and by Esther’s shrewdness at judging people. Zodiac juggles these different elements with surprising success. With good writing, two charming leads, witty dialogue and a slightly whimsical premise Zodiac ends up being slightly dotty but rather endearing and it’s all so remarkably good-natured it’s hard to dislike this series. Highly recommended.

a 1972 Columbo theatrical double-header

I love murder stories with theatrical or movie studio backgrounds and the second season of Columbo provides two such tales which makes these two episodes a perfect double feature for me.

The fourth season two episode Dagger of the Mind could have been called Columbo Goes to London. Never have I seen so much gratuitous use of travelogue-type footage of the tourist spots of London. This is also a very under-appreciated episode - there are several very important elements that many people seem to overlook in this story.

Everyone’s favourite shabby detective is in London, as a guest of Scotland Yard, to address a police conference. He finds himself caught up in a theatrical murder.

Fading stars Nicholas Frame (Richard Basehart) and his wife Lillian Stanhope (Honor Blackman) are about to open in Macbeth in the West End when the wealthy aristocrat putting up the money for the play is killed. Since this is Columbo and the murderer is always revealed right at the start there’s no harm in revealing that our two has-been actors are involved. The murder has been arranged to look like an accident but Columbo just happens to be on the scene and he’s immediately suspicious.

What follows is the usual battle of wills as Columbo tries to persuade the killers to make a mistake so he can prove his case.

The first important thing to note is that Frame and his wife are appearing in Macbeth. Just like the protagonists in the play the protagonists of Dagger of the Mind find that ambition has its price and it’s a price that keeps on increasing. There is one plot point that has attracted criticism but once you remember the Macbeth connection it makes sense - once you decide that ambition overrides everything else you have jumped aboard a roller coaster that you can’t get off.

Another point sometimes overlooked relates to Richard Basehart’s performance. He is not supposed to be playing a great Shakespearian actor. He is playing an ageing ham who thinks he is a great Shakespearian actor and thinks he sees his opportunity to prove it, and to prove his critics wrong. In fact both Nicholas and Lillian are well past their prime and this production is their last chance to rekindle their fading careers. With this in mind it’s clear that Basehart knows exactly what he’s doing with his performance and he nails Nicholas Frame’s character superbly. Blackman is equally good and the two of them chew every piece of scenery they can get their teeth into.

Adding to the fun is the great Wilfred Hyde-White as the butler Tanner.

The fifth episode, Requiem for a Falling Star, can be seen as a kind of follow-up to Dagger of the Mind dealing as it does with murder in Hollywood. Another link between the two episodes is that both deal with stars whose careers are on the downslide. 

Fading star Nora Chandler (Anne Baxter) is the murderess but she kills the wrong person. She meant to kill sleazy gossip columnist Jerry Parks (Mel Ferrer) who is blackmailing but by mistake she kills her faithful secretary and friend Jean Davis (Pippa Scott). Lieutenant Columbo happens to be one of Nora’s biggest fans and he hates to think she might be a murderess but the evidence seems to point that way.

This is a rather untypical Columbo episode. As usual it’s an inverted detective story but with several very interesting variations (I won’t spilt the episode by giving any hints as the nature of these variations).

Like all Columbo episodes it’s pretty scrupulously fair play. We see all the same clues that Columbo sees although of course we might not always interpret them correctly.

Anne Baxter gives a spirited performance as the formidable Nora. 

Columbo never pretended to be a realistic cop show and always works best when Columbo is up against formidable adversaries played by actors who are willing to go over-the-top. These two episodes qualify on both counts. Dagger of the Mind is more fun thanks to the extraordinary overacting of Richard Basehart and Honor Blackman but Requiem for a Falling Star is more ambitious and demonstrates what could be achieved when the basic formula of the series was tweaked just a little. Both episodes are fine entertainment.