Cult TV Blog

It's Fake Mediums Week on the blog! Lucky you none of you come here for sensible blogging, isn't it. Actually it's remarkable how things come to your attention in common themes. When I posted earlier this year about television plays it was remarkable how psychopathy came up and I wasn't even looking for it. Now in my viewing fake mediums have come up. There is of course a certain irony in there being a Randall and Hopkirk episode featuring a fake medium. I like the ones where people who aren't knowingly psychic or professional mediums can see Marty either all the time or under certain circumstances. On the other hand I suppose having a real ghost with you is a fairly certain way to weed out the fake mediums! We're still in classic ITC territory and I'm going to say it right now - for my money you can keep all the CGI in the world, there's nothing to compare to a good set and some back projection interspersed with some stock footage. I like my TV to be un...

We arrive at shows broadcast in the seventies and still using the white Jaguar footage (although this show was actually made in 1968). I am not even going to pretend to do a full discussion of this show but will purely focus on what interests me - simply because it has already had very full discussion on the internet, especially the page on the Randall and Hopkirk Deceased website linked below. I actually love this one, purely because I love the classic film set up where a family come together at an isolated house (with or without the reading of a will), all loathe each other and then the bodies start piling up. It was virtually impossible to get through this series without using that plot at some point! As always when I watch this show I have unresolved questions about Randall's work and finances. Most obviously how he manages to afford a flat decorated in up to the minute seventies decor, despite never having any money. This episode brings up another question and I honestly don...

I have an impression that Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) is rather less popular than many of the shows I post about here. I find the most popular is The Avengers (particularly posts where I talk about Mrs Peel – I think I may have explained those posts’ popularity) and then The Man from UNCLE, although I haven’t really posted on many of those episodes. You would think, with the show’s 1960s vibe and appearance, it would be right at the top of the list. Perhaps there may be a problem with genre, although I would place it firmly into 1960s unreal genre myself, but a railway journey contained in this episode is enough excuse to include it in this series of posts on the railways. Perhaps I should post more on this show and see what happens. Please don’t get the impression that I don’t like this show – it is actually one of my favourites to put on and just drift into the mood of the episode – but I find I want to start off with a few criticisms. I feel there is a difficulty of credibili...

Somewhere - I didn't make a note of where & of course I now can't find a single instance of this criticism online - I have read a criticism that Randall & Hopkirk didn't really make full use of the basic premise that one member of the firm was deceased, & so not subject to the usual limitations that we humans tend to have. Walking through walls, for one. Being a fly on the wall at your boss's appraisal for another. Those kind of things. Of course I now have no way of knowing whether these were the sort of things the reviewer referred to. The point of this is that in this episode, a murder is witnessed by Hopkirk, the murderer is convinced nobody saw him, & Hopkirk imposes on Randall to do something about it, in the middle of a date. This has set me thinking to what extent the show did actually use Hopkirk's deceased status, within the confines of the technology available at the time. I haven't watched the remake of R&H, but I feel that...

I am beginning to think that these eccentric sixties tv series are a cultural genre unto themselves that must be approached in a particular way. They have to be watched in a relatively unquestioning way, & enjoyed for what they are without picking holes, because they're not built for any great analysis. This episode is a perfect example of that: I have watched it countless times, aware that the entire basis of this episode is wrong. The problem is is that it is obvious from the start that what is going on is a confidence trick of some sort. I can only assume that Randall's head was so turned by talking to his dead partner that he did not ring the police there & then. That is what anyone sensible would do faced with the scenario delineated here. This - rather major - plot failure isn't the only hole in this plot, which when you examine it looks like an old-fashioned string bag. The fake Marty's plot wouldn't have worked, because of the simple fact that m...

I realise I'm finding it difficult to write about Randall & Hopkirk, because I've just realised I watch them for all the wrong reasons, for the sixties atmosphere rather than the actual story. It is therefore strange that I like this one a lot, since its milieu is theatrical rather than swinging sixties. On the other hand this one's got to be good, it was written by Ray Austin! And apart from the quibble that it's slightly obvious from the beginning, that it is. It's interesting in terms of Randall's character, especially as I'm coming straight to this one from Just for the Record: in both of these Randall comes across as a rather sleazy character, or possibly just at his financial wits' end. The ethics of selling his story to the papers are rightly slightly underdeveloped, since it is clear in the context of the series that Randall's business & private coffers are chronically underfinanced. He is painted as - almost - a rogue here, but ...

This episode isn't a favourite among Randall & Hopkirk fans; needless to say I've chosen it to be the first to blog about because it is one of my personal favourites! For me it encapsulates much of what I like about sixties TV: it has elements of intrigue in the plot to take over the throne, the bizarre in having a dead person an active member of a private detective agency, & totally sixties elements, both in the visuals and in the fact of the beauty pageant being completely accepted! Visually I think Randall & Hopkirk is always a winner: much thought has clearly been put into how it will look on the screen, for example in sixties street scenes, & this one starts on a visual high note with the experiment in the warehouse. The picture here is intended to show what I mean about the sixties visuals: get that already-migrainous sofa against that dead sixties wall art! Did nobody get through the sixties without wanting to crawl into a darkened room & die qui...