Whodunnit?

James from London

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Zbornak-esque

googles ...

The "Zbornaks" (singular "Zbornak") are an alien species of reptilian bipeds found around the galaxy of Wander Over Yonder ... The species is named after Dorothy Zbornak from The Golden Girls.

I feel both none the wiser and wiser simultaneously.
 

Mel O'Drama

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It's now 1978 in Whodunnitville and we're one third of the way through the final series.

Gone is Anouska Hempel, but you'd barely notice. She's been replaced as the series' regular female sleuth by one Liza Goddard. The resemblance between the two women is remarkable. Not that there's that much physical resemblance between them (other than both being nubile blondes). The resemblance comes from the overall package. Both are well-spoken and articulate. Throughout each episode they look and sound extremely switched on and thoroughly engaged in what they're doing. Both are also disarmingly charming. Hempel perhaps almost intimidatingly so, in a Donna Mills kind of way. Goddard, though, is more youthfully winsome (perhaps reflective of her being almost ten years Hempel's junior). If I were comparing this situation to a familar one, I'd say Goddard is this series' Kris Munroe (and, indeed, there's also a bit of a physical resemblance there as well).

Not having seen much of Bergerac, and not being fortunate enough to own The Brothers on DVD (unlike Mr @Willie Oleson), I know Liza best as the one that replaced Una Stubbs in Give Us A Clue. I can't remember her making much of an impression on me there, but I'm finding her very watchable here. Jon Pertwee repeatedly calls her "Lisa" but nobody seems very concerned - including the lady herself.

Gone, too, are the TV Times winners. We're back to a panel of two regulars and two guests. Even many of the guests are semi-regulars themselves. Alfred Marks seems to be on it every few weeks, and is usually the comic relief (pretty much every sentence he utters has a punchline, which gets a little exhausting by the end of the 40 minutes). Other panellists have included June Whitfield ("I've just realised we're supposed to butt in with questions and not wait to be asked", she shrewdly observed) and Mollie Sugden (who squeezed in both an "I'm free" and a pussy gag. Suspects in Mollie's week included Mr Mash himself).

Among the suspect line up have been several more of the Howards' Way cast including Jan Harvey returning for a third appearance. The other two have been Tony Anholt, giving great fop and Kate O'Mara (twice). If I'm not mistaken, Kate is also the second future Dynasty star to have appeared (the first being Stephanie Beacham). Though they weren't the only connection to the series, with Alexis's other sister, Jackie Collins, having appeared a couple of times earlier in the run. Kate O'Mara made a surprisingly good swarthy pirate in her second appearance, and gloried in the name of Treasure Chest Magee.



I feel both none the wiser and wiser simultaneously.

Likewise, James.
 

Mel O'Drama

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I must give a mention to Jon Pertwee's victorious little gesture. He's been doing it since series two and I keep forgetting to comment on it.

Each week, as the credits roll, he extends his arms out so that they form an "L" shape either side, with his hands raised so they're parallel with his head. Then he swivels from side to side in his chair.

In earlier series you could just catch him doing it as the credits ended, but he's also been known to do it just as the credits begin.

Nobody's made any comment about it and I'm very curious as to the significance and the origin. Is it a "W" for the series title? Is it a Jon Pertwee thing that he's done elsewhere? Does he save it for when someone's guessed correctly? Is it a secret coded message to watching spies? Is it meaningless?
 

Mel O'Drama

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According to IMDB she also starred in a remake of The Plank.

Oh yes. Shortly after Whodunnit? ended. And curiously, half the cast of the remake were featured on Whodunnit? over the years. Perhaps not surprising as it was also made by Thames.
 

Mel O'Drama

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As we near series' end, Liza - we're told - will not be in the next few episodes due to theatre commitments. As there are now just two episodes left, it's looking like I've watched her last Whodunnit? Her place has been filled by some woman I've never heard of (even though IMDb tells me I've seen her in a number of things): Anna Dawson.

Even more curiously, one of Anna's first episodes also featured Anouska Hempel, the predecessor of her predecessor. Anouska has seemed very serious on her recent return visits. The conspiracy theorist in me started to wonder if she hadn't wanted to be there (to continue with my earlier Charlie's Angels parallel, rather like Farrah Fawcett's forced contractual return to the series). I suspect I'm looking too deeply into it, but that's what binge watching this series does to a viewer, I suppose.

Patrick Mower was also absent in the last episode due to "night shooting" and I believe is also not returning for the rest of the series. This actually feels like a reprieve for me. He takes the game very seriously. Which is fine... someone needs to. But he's become a little more overbearing this series. There have been a number of whispered confabs with other panellists, particularly Liza (conferring has been a big no-no up to this point, since the panellists are essentially in competition with one another). He's butted in to either ask a question or even to instruct someone else what they need to ask And his hand is constantly in the air, waiting to ask another question. His questioning is great, and his success record very impressive. But he's become something of a bleeding deacon which is not a good thing.

There's a balance to be struck with how seriously one takes the game, I suppose. At the opposite end of the scale to Patrick, there's Jimmy Jewel who is not the least bit interested in finding out whodunnit, but uses his questioning time to fire off tedious and unfunny wisecracks. The episode I watched last night was, inexplicably, his fourth appearance on the series.

There's also an increase in the episodes that are getting laughs. Not just the panel game part, but the actual acting out of the murder. I'm not sure about it. On the one hand, this isn't a series that needs to be taken seriously, but I've found that too much frivolity all round makes the series feel somewhat vacuous and meaningless. Last night's A Dead Cert is a case in point. Audience laughter could be heard in the moments leading up to the murder and it fell a little flatter as a result. It's so much funnier when the panel is able to get some laughs from a more grave situation. The episode in question featured a school to sex up men and make them more attractive to women. As is the law with any sex related comedy of the Seventies, Valerie Leon was one of the teachers.

The biggest revelation of the episode was actually Norman Bowler's legs, which are very impressive indeed. All of which led me to discover just moments ago that pre-Emmerdale patriarch, Bowler was well-known as a bodybuilder and muse of homoerotic artist John Minton.



 

James from London

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The biggest revelation of the episode was actually Norman Bowler's legs, which are very impressive indeed. All of which led me to discover just moments ago that pre-Emmerdale patriarch, Bowler was well-known as a bodybuilder and muse of homoerotic artist John Minton.

Strange, isn't it? I'd never heard of Minton until Mark Gatiss did a really interesting documentary about him last year. Norman Bowler pops up in it. It's worth dipping into if you get a chance:

 

Mel O'Drama

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Mark Gatiss did a really interesting documentary about him last year.
I'll be watching it to the end.

Well, that was quite a journey. The shifts between dark and light in his life and his works are very stark indeed, and they all had me hooked in.

I very much appreciate that there are people like Mark Gatiss bringing unsung heroes - or at least lesser known artists - back into the public consciousness. And I dare say the trips to Soho, Cornwall and Corsica made filming this very enjoyable.
 

James from London

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I very much appreciate that there are people like Mark Gatiss bringing unsung heroes - or at least lesser known artists - back into the public consciousness. And I dare say the trips to Soho, Cornwall and Corsica made filming this very enjoyable.

Yeah, I think it was very much a labour of love. Glad you liked it!
 

J. R.'s Piece

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There's also the risk that familiarity breeds contempt, particularly when a regular is very competitive, as Mower seems to be (I'm at a loss to understand why Mower's apparent alpha male qualities are less tolerable to me than Edward Woodward's, which were an attractive part of the show for me).

Bill Dean was in the last episode I watched, along with Frank Thornton. Is there a series of this era that these chaps weren't in?
Well, I used to watch/still watch Patrick Mower as a regular in Callan (with Edward Woodward), Special Branch (with George Sewell) and Target. And on guest spots in UFO (appearing briefly with future co-star George Sewell), Department S, Jason King and The Adventurer. Anouska Hempel was in some of the later UFO episodes. His UFO appearance is fun. He gets away with murdering businessman Allan Cuthbertson in a special closing credits shock reveal. SHADO find out that he is planning to do it but they have already administered him with an amnesia drug, so they just leave him to it and don’t get involved. And that alpha male stuff permeates all those roles then. Which is why I enjoy Mrs Peel beating him in a 1966 episode of The Avengers. And they opened his Callan character up a bit (by seriously injuring a girl who then does not recover) just before they killed him off, just after Anthony Valentine came back and letting Mower go to Special Branch. And there was a Special Branch episode where his character fell in love with someone he was forced to deceive. I enjoyed his suffering. Although I forgave him slightly for sending that image up on The Grimleys.

As for Frank Thornton, he had previously the most ubiquitous guest actor on ITC’s The Four Just Men. Which starred Jack Hawkins, Dan Dailey, Richard Conte, Vittorio De Sica with Honor Blackman, Andrew Keir, Lisa Gastoni and June Thorburn. Frank Thornton plays different people in over a dozen episodes. In a couple, he appears as two different people.
 
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J. R.'s Piece

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Shaw Taylor was somewhat more inconspicuous as a panellist than he was as chairman. I only really noticed him because I was interested in the switch of role between he and Edward Woodward. Was it my imagination, or did Edward Woodward take a couple of opportunities to flex his authoritative muscles to Shaw by refusing a request or hurrying him along during questioning?

Future chairman Jon Pertwee was the most entertaining panellist yet. His tongue was

The fashion episode was great fun, with even more outrageous costuming than usual and key characters consequently looking like they'd stepped off the set of the Batman series. The effect was compounded by character actor Aubrey Morris camping it up.

Interesting to see Valerie Von Ost, who I only really know from her fairly small but memorable roles in a couple of the Carry Ons.
The late Valerie Van Ost used to pop up in sixties and seventies shows. She was the sole guest performer (The Body) alongside Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg in the colour promotional film, The Strange Case ofvthe Missing Corpse, for series five of The Avengers. She put in a strong performance in an episode of Strange Report, appearing with Derren Nesbitt and Anton Diffring. She memorably did an episode of The Avengers, playing Steed’s rally partner, recounting tales of how her exes died. She tested for the role of Diana Rigg’s replacement and the test footage survives. Seen her in some horror films with Peter Cushing too and she got murdered in them. She became an agent afterwards. But I really remember her from her guest part in a P.J. Hammond (he did Sapphire and Steel a few years later) story for Ace of Wands, in which she plays a beautiful snooty restaurant owner. Mr Peacock (Brian Wilde), who can project his own mental images into other people’s minds, makes her scream in horror at seeing herself as a much older and less desirable woman (played by someone else). Mr Peacock chuckles as he calmly walks off with her jewels, as the End of Part One commercial break bumper comes up.

Was watching Aubrey Morris on The Sentimental Agent recently. Even though he held The Sentimental Agent at gunpoint and was thinking of killing him, The Sentimental Agent fixed up a deal to supply him with allergy relief.

Edward Woodward flexing his muscles? Possibly. Well, you remember what happened that time when he popped over to kill Patrick Cargill...
 

Willie Oleson

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Anouska Hempel
She seemed impossibly pretty, like Lynsey de Paul but more so
I don't know her, but when I read the name and placed it in a 1970s England context I instinctively knew she had to be of the Britt Ekland caliber (maybe holding a big feather "Helen Mirren style" while guest panelling murder mystery after murder mystery).
Apparently, she guest starred in an episode of The Lotus Eaters so I had seen her before, actually.
 

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Anouska Hempel had been in some episodes of the 1970 production block (the Pinewood episodes) of UFO, playing a SHADO operative on a Skydiver fighter jet/submarine and at SHADO Control, secretly located under the Harlington-Straker Film Studios. She guested in The Persuaders!, The Adventurer and the BBC’s long-running oil drama series The Troubleshooters. She had appeared in one of the best episodes of Department S, The Bones of Byrom Blain, as an air stewardess who finds that her VIP passenger has become a fully/clothed skeleton while she wasn’t looking and while Stewart Sullivan (Joel Fabiani) of Department S has succumbed to gas in his plane seat. Which also stars Peter Wyngarde, Rosemary Nicols and Dennis Alaba Peters with guests John Carson, John Barron, Patrick Barr, Michael Griffiths, Gerald Campion and Davyd Harries. Anouska Hempel starred as astrologer Esther Jones with Anton Rodgers’s police inspector character in a crime show called Zodiac, created by Roger Marshall.

Roger Marshall, who died earlier this year, created Mitch and co-created the long-running Public Eye (Stephanie Beacham’s episode was repeated days ago), wrote for The Avengers, William Tell, The Sweeney, The Gentle Touch, Lovejoy, London’s Burning, Special Branch (Patrick Mower was one of the stars of the last two series) and The Professionals, among others. He did an episode of Survivors (where a virus from China has wiped out 95% of the world’s population), where Patrick Troughton has a lovely part but then gets murdered by Kevin McNally. His son, Dr Rodney Marshall (who I occasionally have dealings with), writes lots of books on tv.

Anouska Hempel and Anton Rodgers in Zodiac:
 
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J. R.'s Piece

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Wait wait wait, a long-running oil drama series?? Was it a continuous drama or a new story per episode?
Oh, both. It started to use ongoing storylines. Thornton’s marriage to Steve (Justine Lord) falling apart, Stead’s heart attacks, stories spanning years. It was originally called Mogul (the name of the oil company). Then reformatted and renamed The Troubleshooters from the second series. It ran from 1965 to 1972. The head of Mogul was Brian Stead (Geoffrey Keen). B. Stead was a play on the word...well you can guess. Well-known Australian actor Ray Barrett starred as Peter Thornton, Philip Latham was Willy Izard. Robert Hardy was Alec Stewart. Ray Barrett released an album that had a title referring to his role. He had been a regular on Stingray, Ghost Squad and Thunderbirds, among others before that.
 
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