Hammer House of Horror: Children of the Full Moon

 "It's getting dark outside..."

This is a good 'un. A creepy, very well-directed werewolf episode with an unexpectedly creepy Diana Dors magnificenly defying her usual typecasting in a scene-stealing role. She really is extraordinary. The whole thing is a trap for the unfortunate newlywed couple, of course, but the fun is in watching the whole thing inexorably unfold.

Yes, I suppose the werewolf costume is a bit rubbish. But we only glimpse it twice and, frankly, with a story this atmospheric, who cares.We get creepy kids. We get a compelling mystery. We get a clever, surprising, yet logical resolution. If little details aren't all tied up (why does the car accelerator jam early on?) then,well, that's all part of the uncanny feel of successful horror, and the fates of both Sarah and Tom are suitably gruesome, yet it's the anticipation of the horror to come on which the horror relies, not gore.

This is one of the finest episodes yet, although again we see how society has changed in the last forty years. These days one wouldn't say "how do you do" to anyone, let alone a child. And the existence of mobile phones would scupper the entire plot somewhat.

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes: The Problem of Thor Bridge

 "I'm falling into your involved habit of telling a story backward."

This is, surprisingly, one of the finest episodes of the Granada Sherlock Holmes series to date. Surrising, I suppose, partly because the popular Conan Doyle stories have all been done and that now, in the '90s and after a gap, and with a visibly frailer Jeremy Brett (significantly more pronounced in this episode, I would say, than in the previous one) we are left with the less well-known short stories from His Last Bow and the Case-Book; this episode is the first adaptation from the latter.

Yet I'd forgotten how good these later stories, written by Conan Doyle in the 1920s, could be. Here we have an ingenious whodunit which begins, on the face of it, with damning evidence of Miss Dunbar's guilt yet, through devilish clever plotting, has Holmes reveal a very different and ingenious truth- and the gold magnate Neil Gibson is a nuanced and not altogether pleasant figure. He may be rich and powerful, but he has an acknowledged history of domestic abuse; is Miss Dunbar truly so fortunate as Holmes and Watson assume?

This is a superbly made episode, with excellent guest performances from Daniel Massey and Catherine Russell. The setting of Miss Dunbar's cell as she awaits trial and potentially the gallows is suitably chilling- and this is, I believe, the first episode to feature a car. This series promises to be better than I perhaps expected.