Week 6: Ditching the streaming algorithms and building my playlist

Welcome to this feature-length installment of the Retroscopic Roundup – where I look back over the week’s entertainment to see how varied it’s been (or not), and to keep track of where I am with the various programmes I’ve got on the go.

Scroll past the diary if you want to read the ‘Story So Far’ near the bottom of the page.

I didn’t find time to upload my viewing diary last week, so we’ve got two memorable weeks of classic television to look back on.

*Contains mild spoilers

Saturday 22 August

Danger Man Series 2, episode 59 Have A Glass of Wine

Warren Mitchell returns to the series playing the role of a French wine merchant, and not the semi-regular rival Drake encountered earlier in the series. The entire episode sends up the stereotypical view of France. A fun runaround.

Movie Hot Shots (John Abrahams, 1991).

I remember the sequel (Hot Shots: Part Deaux) but not the first movie, Hot Shots, in which Lloyd Bridges gets a bigger slice of the action. The humour is right up my street. Outlandish, occasionally obvious and quite ridiculous. My favourite scene: the pilots chatting in the billet only to discover they all happen to be distantly – implausibly – related to eachother. There’s lots of mishaps with fighter jets, leading to scenes of airmen getting flung through the air (“Wendy I can fly!”), and of course Charlie Sheen and Valeria Golino.

Sunday 23 August

Space Precinct Episode 4 Double Duty

Edris Ilba appeared a pizza delivery guy but dubbed with another actor’s voice.

Monday 24 August

Doctor Who: Season 9 The Curse of Peladon – Episodes 3 & 4

The interplanetary intrigue comes to head and the once war-like Ice Warriors turn out to be the good guys after all. David Troughton (son of Patrick) provides an unintentionally effete portrayal on King Peladon but even here, in this fairly early role, the young actor possessed exceptional gravitas.

Tuesday 25 August

Special Branch Series 3, episode 2 Round the Clock

Patrick Mower as guest-stars in this tense semi-two-hander between Craven and Detective Inspector Tom Haggerty. On a stake out in a disused school, with Craven’s reputation on the line.

So far, this isn’t a patch of the Darren Nesbitt phase of the show.

Wednesday 26 August

The Last Place on Earth Episode 2 of 7

The two opposing expeditions began the first leg of their sea voyage to Antarctica. Eagle-eyed viewers will spot future movie star Hugh Grant and Sylvester McCoy (Doctor Who, The Hobbit) in early screen roles.

Thursday 27 August

Sword of Freedom The Pagan Venus

This episode featured my favourite character, Machiavelli, quite heavily and guest-starred Leonard Sachs, Bill Fraser, John Carson and Alan Rowe.

In this episode, the De Medici seeks to corner the market in pagan artworks (paintings, sculptures, etc.) by passing a law to ban ownership. Opposing the new edict, Marco goes undercover as one of the self-appointed Artist Guilds vigilantes (who support the law in the hope it will increase demand for contemporary art). By duping a visiting art trader from the Spanish Court (Sachs), Marco succeeds in forcing De Medici to repeal the law.

Played here by actor Kenneth Hyde, this episode showed the character behaving true to what we know about the real Machiavelli. He’s on good terms with both the ruling De Medici and key members of resistance movement and spreads information between them. Loyal only to himself, he stirs the pot of intrigue with detached curiosity.

Man at the Top Series 2, episode 6

Kenneth Haigh stars in this series of working-class-boy-comes-good. After losing everything, and refusing any sort of leg-up from his well-connected father-in-law, Joe successfully wrangles a well-paying job. Though he has enemies within the firm, including Paul Eddington’s character, Joe is making his mark. Invited to dinner with his boss (George Sewell), he practically orders his estranged wife to leave her parents house and return with their two youngest children from her parents. An accident on the motorway involving a lorry, changes everything for Joe.

But the wheels of big business never stop turning. The Chairman expects. A family tragedy finally changes Joe’s perspective. When a man with dinosaur-hide skin, finally decides to vent his spleen, it’s cathartic both the character and the audience. What’s next for Joe Lampton is anyone’s guess.

Mr. Big Series 2, episode 1

Eddie tries to cover for his daughter at the office in which she works, while she’s sidelined with flu. A ridiculous premise and the gags weren’t great. Guest star was Andre’ Morrell.

Friday 28 August

Tightrope Episodes 11-13

I successfully watched all thirteen episodes of Tightrope over the course of six weeks, at a rate of two per week, with episode thirteen coming as part of a 3-episode mini-marathon to round off the watch-through.

It’s a complicated plot, filled with lots of twists and turns, and though watching two-episodes-per-week was a lot of fun, it was sometimes a bit difficult to follow the plot.

Look out for my full write-up of this series to be published soon

On The Up Series 2, episode 5

Tony’s limo business has competition in this rather mawkish episode. Everyone’s favourite boss lets his drivers pick up fares and the side, then when he gets some real competition, hatches an elaborate plot (that would never work anywhere except a TV sitcom) to scare of his rivals investors.

Saturday 29 August

I was incredibly busy planning a book promotion for my short story collection, written with fans of classic TV in mind. Phil’s Marvellous Machine & Other Stories is still available in multiple in multiple formats on Amazon.

But can you imagine being so busy, you have literally no time to watch TV? Not even half an hour? No, I can’t either. I was also watching WWE, which you probably don’t want to hear about.

Moving on…

Sunday 30 August

Raffles

Raffles cheers a marose Bunny by allowing him to call the shots during their burglary. Another fun outing for the gentleman thief (Anthony Valentine) and his hapless side-kick Bunny (Christopher Strauli). This episode guest-starred William Mervyn (All Gas & Gaiters, Mr Rose).

Bank Holiday Monday 31 August

Batman: The Movie

I wanted something fun. Something that had a Bank Holiday Monday feel to it. Taken as pure escapism (as per the pre-credits caption slide), this extended outing for Adam West & Burt Ward’s colourful Batlan and Robin is enormous fun.

The most dastardly criminals in Gotham City, Joker, Riddler, the Penguin and Catwoman team up to challenge the dynamic duo and reduce the members of the World Peace Alliance to neat piles of multi-coloured powder.

I’ve only seen this movie once since I was a child, so I never noticed how everything in the Batcave, Batmobile and other Bat vehicles seen in this movie (including a helicopter, speedboat and motorbike with detachable go-cart sidecar) is conveniently labelled. And I never noticed the ‘Instant Costume Change, lever Bats pulls as he slides down the fireman’s pole into the Batcave, either.

Intentionally stagey, camp and, at times, ridiculous, the Batman Movie sends up superheroes, arch villains, square-jawed do-gooders and, ultimately itself. In this context, a woefully unconvincing killer shark is almost contractual.

Poirot Series 13, episode 1 Elephants Can Remember

Continuing the bank holiday watching, this 90 minute episode saw Poirot and Ariadne Oliver investigating separate cases, before realising they might both be on the same trail.

With this episode watched, there are now just four feature-length episodes of ITVs Poirot starring David Suchet left to watch, which will complete the watch-through of every episode in the series in sequential order that I started back in 2019. You see, I’m really not joking when I say I like to savour a series.

Tuesday 1 September

Ghost Squad Series 1, episode 8 Assassin

A fairly standard episode in which Craig tries to clear an American being held for assainating the president of a small European country, whose death is being used to build support for a communist revolution. This episode featured Jill Ireland, Joseph Fürst, George Coulouris and Norman Bird.

Special Branch Series 3, episode 3 Inquisition

In this episode, Craven is convinced he can spot a traitor. Guest-starring Clifford Rose (Secret Army, Kessler), this was a grim instalment with only one logical outcome.

On The Up Series 2, episode 5

The storyline involving the love triangle between Tony, Maggie and Sam continues. Tony meets a kind single mum, ingratiating himself until she agrees to go out with him, while Mrs. Wembley tries her hand at match-making and contrived to Sam and Maggie to go to the cinema together. The episode ended with the suggestion of deeper emotional intrigue, so I’m curious to see how this plays out.

Wednesday 2 September

Space Precinct Episode 5: The Snake

This was a really well-paced episode that was quite tense in places, as Brogan hunts a terrorist before he can cause a disaster. I watch these with a friend and it’s official, we love Space Precinct.

Thursday 3 September

Sergeant Cork Series 3, episode 14

Friday 4 September

Red Dwarf Series 11, episode 2 Samsara

In this episode, the crew of Red Dwarf investigate a crashed spaceship on the bed of an ocean planet.

It’s typical of these ‘Dave era’ episodes to feature a both solid sci-fi concept and things that irritate long-time followers of the show.

In Samsara, writer Doug Naylor presents us with the Karma Drive, a programmable engine that can manipulate real-time to affect an individuals fortunes – based on their ethical behaviour. The Karma Drive rewards good behaviour (as defined by whomever programmes the drive), and punishes bad behaviour – usually with daily irritants such as dreadful-tasting coffee, tasteless food, wardrobe malfunctions and luke-warm showers. The drive was tampered with, it’s parameters altered and, somehow, the crew died.

A chunk of this episode has Lister and Cat trapped together, unaware the drive has malfunctioned. These scenes should remind us of Quarantine or Duct Soup, where the duo were similarly trapped together. Here, Cat displays his complete ignorance of human history and culture, a hitherto unseen character trait. This is exactly the type of thing that irritates some long-time fans of the show. (In my ‘head canon’, Lister worked to qwell his ignorance and jumbled memory of historical facts to impress Kotchanski – before they realised in Series 9, that she was a Despair Squid manifestation. The Cat, meanwhile, has developed a truly mashed collection of almost-facts, thanks to witnessing Lister’s efforts to expand his own mind, and watching thousands of hours of terrible movies).

The Cat once had the ability to smell asteroids, gas nebulas and assorted ‘swirly things’ but this useful skill hasn’t been seen since Red Dwarf VII. The reason is finally addressed, presumably to please the series’ fans, but is done so with a typically Cat-like illogical argument, that it probably annoyed fans more than they were before.

Morecambe & Wise LWT Series 1, episode 3

A number of verbal jokes and visual jokes suffered malfunctions leading to a disjointed episode, and the first let down of the duos run on ITV, but a pleasing way to round off the week.

NEXT TIME: Continuing the watch-through of On The Up, The Last Place on Earth and others, plus a few surprises.

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The Story So Far

When linear television was at its height in the UK, with 60–80 channels to choose from (depending on regional coverage), I had my own schedule. Flitting between channels to catch my favourite programmes and using tapes from my video cassette collection when there was nothing else worth watching, it was a personal routine of programmes slotted in perfectly between school, friends, family commitments, homework, and my own projects.

Now, it’s my job, smallholding and home life that demand my attention. But I’m a creature of habit, so I absolutely need my routines.

This is the viewing diary that I keep for myself, but with added context and detail. It runs from Saturday to Friday. You might notice that I like my TV shows to be aged to perfection, like wine. Scroll up to read or subscribe to future editions for free.