Carry On Camping (1969)

 "Do you know, she's been showing me how to stick the pole up!"

It's back to the contemporary world of 1969 after all of the recent historical action, and another one of the best Carry Ons here- much though the setting really does give us a proper little time capsule anda reminder of how different we were as a country backin 1969.

It can't be denied, though- the humour is great here. The gag with Mr Fiddler and the sign at the entrance to the campis simply inspired. And all the regulars are in fine form here, with the addition of the wonderful Betty Marsden, who is hilarious (as a character called Harriet Potter!) and has superb comic chemistry with Terry Scott. The dynamic from Carry On Doctor between Kenneth Williams and Hattie Jacques is revived here... even revealing that this is the exact same Matron, in a nice little breaking of the fourth wall.

But my God... it was such a different time. Wearing a suit to the cinema. The older generation still insisting on no sex before marriage despite the fact that, now that it's the '60s and the pill exists, this shows a rather irresponsible and cavalier attitude to getting married. City gents with bowler hats. Hippies!

Most of all, though, the blokes' perving attitude to sex now... aspecially the eponymous Sid and Bernie, both clearly midde aged, lusting after presumably teenage pupils of a finishing school, which is rather icky, to say the least. Then there's Peter, the hen pecked husband, who discovers at the end that the answer to his problems is to give Harriet a damn good seeing to, after which he seems to be in charge. Yep. It was a very different time.

No denying it, though- this film is very, very funny.

Inspector Morse: The Sins of the Fathers

 "He didn't think Mr Trevor could organise a proverbial. Even in his own brewery."

Last episode was, especially on reflection, utterly superb. And so is this one, full of cleverly interwoven plot threads and nuanced characters played by first rate guest stars... until it isn't. The ending, with its sudden reveal of events back in history which motivated the murderer, doesn't feel earned and, although it doesn't exactly breal Father Knox's traditional rules of detective fiction, it isn't really in the spirit. None of this historical Knox stuff was forewarned to the viewer.

And yet the drama is excellent. Betty Marsden's racist mother, and Lionel Jeffries and Isabel Dean as the horribly snobbish family of the victim, all particularly excel, although we do find ourselves with that age old problem of detective telly, that the most famous guest actors are likely to be the ones whodunit.

The young Alex Jennings, though... wow. I realise he's been ubiquitous on television these last few years, but as a young actor he could exude such nuance and, yes, menace.

A flawed but impressive instalment, though. And, yet again, a remindwr that the world of my early youth is long gone. No more posh old people of that generation, and no more typewriters. But we have real ale still, and long may it persist.

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes: The Red Circle

 "Please vanish, both of you!"

Two superb episodes in a row: that's more like it. It looks as though there's hope for this final series after all.

I fear I recall little of the short story, but this is a nice little stiry about a very thinly veiled Mafia which manages to handle the tension well and to generate real fear. Never has the Granada Sherlock Holmes felt so much like The Godfather, but this is well written, and extremely well shot too.

Not only that, though- the cast is extraordinary. John Hallam makes an excellent villain, but it's truly delightful to see the lovely and talented Betty Marsden, as well as Kenneth Connor, both in straight roles- although sadly, for Connor, a posthumous one.

Yes, I know I've been critical in the past of adaptations of stories which are not really whodunits, or end up as something else following the adaptation. Yet The Red Circle, while abandoning all pretence of being a whodunit halfway through, still contains a gnuine mystery, and the shift to more of a suspenseful action thriller is, for once, handled well.

It's a nicely subtle ending, too: for once Holmes can't override the law and prevent a man ho acted in self-defence from being arressted for murder, even if we know damn well he will be acquitted.

Blake's 7: Assassin

“All right then; he’s not infallible. It’s just that up to now he’s never failed.”

At last, this rather piss-poor season has produced a second decent episode. I’ve no idea who this Rod Beacham chap is, but he’s really come up trumps with this rather clever little script. All the characters are well-served, the story is gripping, there’s a nice little twist and the pacing is well fast.

The first scene, for all that it’s basically exposition (the team learn about Servalan hiring an assassin to get them and decide to pre-empt her, blah blah blah) is both funny and interesting character-wise, as for once we get to see Avon being scared, however much he may try to hide it. In fact, he spends most of this episode being rather more sensible than he has been of late.

Interesting name for the assassin- Cancer- although I’ve concluded that it’s probably not worth going subtext-hunting here. This episode is all about the action, anyway, as we fast-forward to Avon and Vila having teleported down to the surface of Gomo, one of those ubiquitous quarry worlds, without bothering with any pointless scene beforehand establishing that they’re going to do so. It’s not the last time that this will happen during this episode, and it’s the most refreshing example of the refreshing economy of storytelling that’s on display here.

Avon succeeds in his rather barmy plan of being captured as a slave (What’s with this element of masochistic craziness in Avon’s plans? He did something similar in Rumours of Death. Actually, I take back what I said about him acting sensibly here.), although his losing the bracelet is going to be a bit of a bother.

I fear that for once I’m going to break my golden rule and discuss another programme here, as it’s blindingly obvious that this episode is the reason that Richard Hurndall (Nebrox) gets cast as the First Doctor two years later in The Five Doctors. You can see why. The resemblance is uncanny, far more so, in fact, than it would be when he actually came to play the role.

This isn’t the only delightful piece of casting, either. At the slave auction scene (Servalan’s there, naturally) we get a wonderful little cameo from the legendary Betty Marsden of Round the Horne fame. She gets an interesting little speech, incidentally, which implies (well, says out loud, really) that there are such people as “nouveaux riches” and “nobles” at this point in the future. Also hilarious is her excuse for why so few extras are needed to play the punters at the auction!

There’s a wonderfully kinky little moment as Servalan buys Avon as a slave, but it’s time for the plot to move on, so Avon duly gets rescued. We now move to Cancer’s seemingly marooned ship, the main setting for this episode. Cancer is overpowered, seemingly quite easily, much to the apparent relief of the too-girly-to-be-true Piri. You’ll forgive me for revealing the plot twist at this early stage (I guessed at the 29 minutes and 45 seconds mark), but her awfully stereotyped personality actually turns out to be a very clever postmodern trick- I love that.

Incidentally, the bridge of Cancer’s ship is straight out of an ‘80s music video, with the bearded “Cancer” looking just like General Zod. But the real Cancer, once we finally get to see her as she is, looks utterly fab in a way that transcends the decades, with great hair. Oh, and the fight scenes on the bridge are shot really excitingly, with lots of fast cutting. It’s really, really weird to see direction like this in 1981. I’m really impressed with David Sullivan Proudfoot’s work here. His surname is pretty cool too.

The plot really is very, very clever. “Piri” manages to quite easily manipulate everyone, deliberately alienating Soolin (who comes a little closer to having a personality than she has before, if only because she slaps Piri, and seems to work out that she’s a baddie) and getting Avon and Tarrant to fight over her. Her plan actually seems pretty likely to succeed, too; I suspect that Vila, Dayna and the smitten Tarrant, aboard the Scorpio, would prove rather easy to manipulate.

I like the animatronic spider, too. But the ending is satisfying, giving us a nice little verbal exchange between Servalan and Avon before things are resolved. And it seems the episode ends with Servalan thinking they’re all dead?

That was good. Very good. More like this please.