Thriller (Part Two)
In which more is explained about this sinister AU 1970s Britain, although not why nothing has yet put off all the US tourists, who are still being regularly menaced by British character actors. (Only pausing to occasionally menace them back.)
K is for Killing
This one was kind of supposed to be more light-hearted and was quite fun, but the light-hearted bit was constantly being battered at by the Thriller theme and style, so I don't think it quite came off.
Featuring Gayle Hunnicutt and Stephen Rea as the bantering husband-and-wife investigators, who are trying to find out who keeps trying to kill a millionaire. (Gayle Hunnicutt provides some US-presence in an otherwise under-American set of installments. But DON'T WORRY. More Americans will be menaced soon.)
Whoever it is has been hired via a third party, a dodgy Derek Francis in an even dodgier dressing gown.
It is, as it turns out, his son (Christopher Cazenove), which we could all tell, because he wantonly murdered all the fish in the fish tank at the start, and who does that but the villain of the episode?
Also including a mad wife shut up in the old family home, because, er, why not, I suppose?
Sign It Death
Francesca Annis had been reading too many romance magazines and turned into a serial stalker. Luckily for the rest of the cast, Mr Tully from Sapphire & Steel* (Gerald James) was on her tail. To my amusement, he was trying to get her for three murders in Saltburn. (Saltburn is very near me. It has never been mentioned on TV before in anything I've ever watched. But there is no limit to Thriller's evil, even if we only see the Home Counties incidents!)
The fake Romance magazines were not half as good as the fake murder mystery books they made up for Richard Johnson, though, but I suppose they wouldn't be. However, DO NOT READ! You will turn into a veil-making, scissor-stabbing serial killer!
Patrick Allen, getting stalked even though he's not even American.
Who Killed Lamb?
I don't know what this is. It's on the disc, it's part of the series, but it's not a Thriller episode, it's a detective story starring Stanley Baker. It has slightly more blood than you would expect in a 70s detective thing, but it's not a Thriller ep. Which, frankly, came as a nice surprise. I liked it disproportionately just for not being a Thriller episode, but I don't know why it's here.
The murder victim is Derek Francis, his crimes from two episodes ago catching up with him, I suppose. (I mean, you can't go round wearing purple dressing gowns without expecting someone to do you in, right?)
Stanley Baker and Denis Lill solve the murder.
Peter Sallis did not do it. He didn't do it in The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, either. I think I'm too influenced by his Public Eye appearance in "The Man Who Didn't Eat Sweets" as I now assume 1970s Peter Sallis will always be the unlikely criminal, but apparently not. *eyes him suspiciously*
All-too-brief appearance from Mona Hammond, but she still got to be there and pleasingly snarky and amused about stuff. (Her patient was wearing leather underwear, okay.)
A Coffin For the Bride
Still no Americans, but Michael Jayston has returned to his serial killing ways, after his stint as a murderous butler only a few episodes ago. (I suspect in the 60s in this AU some mad scientist started making Evil Clones and - alas, The Avengers is only a TV show in this verse, so Emma and Steed were not on hand to stop it, and look what kind of a 1970s you end up with as a result.)
He is into cunning disguises, keep fit and murdering his unfortunate older brides as soon as possible after/during the honeymoon.
Another cunning disguise! Although also proof that, attractive as Michael Jayston may be, he was not the keep fit Adonis the script keeps trying to claim. If they wanted us to believe that, they should have made him keep his shirt on.
Then he meets Helen Mirren, whom he just fancies and doesn't want to murder. (Sometimes murder does take a holiday. It goes to a health spa for a break and chats up Helen Mirren.)
... and then he meets Helen Mirren. (Her disguises are more cunning than his!)
And basically, she frames him for the murder of her non-existent other self, thus getting revenge for how no one could ever prove his actual murders were murders.
One of them had been her sister. Score to Helen Mirren! Hopefully, that is finally the end of Michael Jayston's murder career.
It should be mentioned that the US versions of Thriller were done by ITC (who part-produced it) and they added different intros and outros to each one. Most of them are pretty special one way or another, but I have to share with you the one for this where Michael Jayston is a keep-fit Adonis... and Helen Mirren is wearing a bikini for reasons unknown:
I'm the Girl He Wants to Kill
I didn't watch this one, because life's too short for all the skeevy serial killer episodes, especially if they don't have someone I like in them.
This one did have Tony Selby in, though, so have a pic of his dodgy 70s hair.
However, you will be relieved to hear at this point that everything is back to normal and this ep featured an American girl in London getting stalked by the murderer she's going to give evidence against.
Death to Sister Mary
This time Robert Palmer (or his Equally Evil Clone) is back to murder again!
He is a dodgy fan and has his sights set on Jennie Linden as an actor who plays Sister Mary in an unlikely 70s UK drama or soap about nuns and businessmen.
It's being a fandom of one that's done it. I mean, it can get to you, but you should just stick to creating a fanclub and zine and getting an autograph. Trying to preserve your idol for posterity via embalming fluid is taking fannishness too far.
I was very distracted by trying to imagine Saints & Sinners, the nuns and businessmen 70s drama series or soap. (I'm not sure which; it's certainly a soapy sort of show, anyway.) It has an Awesome Abbess and an old school theatre diva as the main businessman character. (Terrible things happen to him via a tin of cat food because he makes Jennie Linden the butt of his diva-ish-ness.) Would watch, anyway, if it hadn't been burninated or anything.
This does mean, though, we get lots of shots of the TV studios and behind-the-scenes in-jokes and things. Shame about the stalker.
It also includes an American priest (George Maharis), who helps Jennie Linden, just in case you were worried the unnatural American drought was continuing. He might be plastic, though. Father Ken, maybe? Oh, and Windsor Davis was this week's dodgy police inspector. (They're all sexist. It's probably very realistic. "Women, eh? Always claiming someone wants to kill them, lol!")
In the Steps of a Dead Man
A soldier claiming to be the best friend of another soldier who died gets taken in almost as replacement by his parents and fiancee. But the fiancee's American friend is the only one with any sense rightly suspicious of him.
Before all the questionable murdering begins. (Skye Aubrey and Denise Buckley.)
They made Richard Vernon just walk around casually crying. This sort of thing needs some kind of warning.
John Nolan as the villainous 'friend' who in fact actually murdered the dead soldier, because anything Robert Palmer can do, he can do too. (He was Robert Palmer's replacement in Doomwatch only a short while before.)
The American then locks him in the secret room that Richard Vernon made for him to hide in but which doesn't open from the inside (everybody in this is kind of dodgy) and leaves him to die.
I mean, I know, he's just murdered two people and attempted to kill two more and you might feel he deserves the death penalty, but even so, best to hand him over to the military police when you have the option and not leave him so that Richard Vernon and his wife (Faith Brook) can find him dead and rotting in the secret room later and think that it was their fault.
Questionable priorities, everybody in this episode has them.
Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are
Two young American tourists visit England, only for one of them to disappear and everyone else to claim they never saw her...
Peter Jeffrey is the police inspector sent in to investigate Lynda Day George's claim. Happily, he is neither evil nor being burnt at the stake for a wonder, but he's an appalling person. But everyone knows it and treats him as such, which is something. (Does anyone ever let Peter Jeffrey be good, apart from that time he was burnt at the stake? I mean, you can see how it might have put him onto the path of Evil, but even so...)
John Carson has a record (apart from the serial killing he did already back in Disc 1, of course) and looks like the actual villain but it turns out that Lynda Day George did the murder herself. This is what comes of visiting 1970s Britain! If you don't get murdered, you'll start being drawn into murderous habits yourself.
The Next Scream You Hear
Someone has just murdered an American businessman's wife! And whoever it is, has just framed said American businessman (Christopher George). Could it be the dodgy and sinister German colleague who doesn't like him?
Does he look like a person who would murder his wife? Hmm...
However, Dinsdale Landen is back as superior private investigate Matthew Earp who featured in one of the earlier eps, now on the case. (Which also clearly means that all of these things take place in the same universe, right? It is a 1970s AU full of evil killer clones and persistent American victims.)
He questions Suzanne Neve, who seems to be part of the frame up.
Via random kissing at parties.
AND THEN THEY HAVE A SWORD-FIGHT.
I mean, some other things happened but they had a SWORD-FIGHT. I find it hard to believe that Dinsdale Landen could beat Suzanne Neve, but, alas, the script says so, because she was evil.
She wasn't actually menacing Americans, though - they were in it together as a cunning plan to murder his wife and then frame him for it which would actually prove his innocence, because life is just one long Agatha Christie novel.
Dinsdale Landen then karate fights the American businessman, which was hilariously terrible, but not in any way a person could screen cap.
There were some other people in it and stuff, but you can't expect me to notice things when Suzanne Neve is being villainous and sword-fighting. More, please, 1970s TV! I want. (I bet no such thing exists, though.)
Nurse Will Make it Better
Moving on to the second volume, we have this instructive installment, which explains nearly everything about the nature of this terrible 1970s AU: Satan is walking around England, personally menacing Americans herself and the only one who can stop her is Patrick Troughton and he's been too drunk to do it for at least a decade, if not longer. And so naturally, as a result, the Home Counties are full of serial killers and stalkers, evil clones, and black magic worshippers.
The whole thing is giving Patrick Troughton nightmares, frankly.
He is dreaming about Vira from The Ark in Space being evil, which is a bit timey-wimey of him.
She was Satan's previous victim, even though she isn't American.
So he has to show off his chest and give us nightmares as well. ;-)
Diana Dors as Nurse Satan. She has a hat of evil and a mysterious box, which I think was meant to be like Pandora's box and contain all the sins of the world, but I don't know. I don't think a person can expect too much sense out of Thriller.
Anyway, she is based in a house full of Americans! At least one of them is secretly Canadian, but all of them are ripe for corrupting and terrorising.
Michael Culver is an English neighbour. He likes galloping about on horseback, but his favourite thing seems to be accidentally involving the daughters of the house in near-fatal accidents, which is apparently what you need in a romantic interest.
Ed Bishop is actually nice! (I'm sorry, I keep meeting him as villains and stalkers, and, um, we won't go into my feelings about UFO again, but let's just say I am not a Gerry Anderson person. (There are no strings on me. ;-p)) He is the nicest security guard in the world. It does not do him any good, or his nice guard dog, either. Diana Dors murders them both.
Patrick Troughton, our inadequate defence against Diana Dors.
This one was possibly the most fun episode, but the reveal that Diana Dors is not just an evil witch (like Diane Cilento was) but in fact Satan ironically makes the whole thing less sinister and more baffling. I mean, if Satan is one person walking around taking on and corrupting (not killing) victims individually (except for Ed Bishop), that's a lot less frightening than the general rep.
But I would definitely prefer lots more like that and far fewer skeevy sex killers.
Night is the Time for Killing
This one had a spy who wanted to meet Charles Gray (because he was a very distinctive person the spy would recognise) on a train but then someone murdered Charles Gray and impersonated him and Judy Geeson was the only one who spotted the fact.
However, it riffed very heavily on The Lady Vanishes. It was not anything like as good as The Lady Vanishes by any means. And even though Charles Gray impersonated himself, it wasn't my favourite thing. (Also, I suspect a lot of Thriller eps must be riffs on films and things, but thrillers and horror are mostly not my genre, so I don't have a clue.)
Judy Geeson, being thought mad by everyone. Poor Judy Geeson. Poor everyone, but it's another round of "hysterical women imagining killers everywhere!" Well, guess what, Thriller-land police - there are killers everywhere!
Charles Gray, hating being on a train and entertainingly complaining about everything.
Sadly, he gets murdered by Jacki Piper from the Carry On films...
... who is working with Duncan Preston, who puts on a mask and magically becomes Charles Gray until the very last minute in the fight at the end where he is just Duncan Preston in a mask. It's lucky this is a universe where supernatural powers exist, or that'd just be silly.
This disc also had an episode called "Screamer" which I skipped because I was tired of skeevy sex killers and it sounded like another one.
And we'll stop there, because that's probably more than enough for one post and also because the next disc is refusing to be screencapped, so I need to battle with it some more.
* Also made only a few years later by ATV. I keep feeling that I'm pretty sure I've seen all these clocks and looming staircases before...
Crossposted from Dreamwidth. Please click through to comment. -- Current comments:
K is for Killing
This one was kind of supposed to be more light-hearted and was quite fun, but the light-hearted bit was constantly being battered at by the Thriller theme and style, so I don't think it quite came off.
Featuring Gayle Hunnicutt and Stephen Rea as the bantering husband-and-wife investigators, who are trying to find out who keeps trying to kill a millionaire. (Gayle Hunnicutt provides some US-presence in an otherwise under-American set of installments. But DON'T WORRY. More Americans will be menaced soon.)
Whoever it is has been hired via a third party, a dodgy Derek Francis in an even dodgier dressing gown.
It is, as it turns out, his son (Christopher Cazenove), which we could all tell, because he wantonly murdered all the fish in the fish tank at the start, and who does that but the villain of the episode?
Also including a mad wife shut up in the old family home, because, er, why not, I suppose?
Sign It Death
Francesca Annis had been reading too many romance magazines and turned into a serial stalker. Luckily for the rest of the cast, Mr Tully from Sapphire & Steel* (Gerald James) was on her tail. To my amusement, he was trying to get her for three murders in Saltburn. (Saltburn is very near me. It has never been mentioned on TV before in anything I've ever watched. But there is no limit to Thriller's evil, even if we only see the Home Counties incidents!)
The fake Romance magazines were not half as good as the fake murder mystery books they made up for Richard Johnson, though, but I suppose they wouldn't be. However, DO NOT READ! You will turn into a veil-making, scissor-stabbing serial killer!
Patrick Allen, getting stalked even though he's not even American.
Who Killed Lamb?
I don't know what this is. It's on the disc, it's part of the series, but it's not a Thriller episode, it's a detective story starring Stanley Baker. It has slightly more blood than you would expect in a 70s detective thing, but it's not a Thriller ep. Which, frankly, came as a nice surprise. I liked it disproportionately just for not being a Thriller episode, but I don't know why it's here.
The murder victim is Derek Francis, his crimes from two episodes ago catching up with him, I suppose. (I mean, you can't go round wearing purple dressing gowns without expecting someone to do you in, right?)
Stanley Baker and Denis Lill solve the murder.
Peter Sallis did not do it. He didn't do it in The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, either. I think I'm too influenced by his Public Eye appearance in "The Man Who Didn't Eat Sweets" as I now assume 1970s Peter Sallis will always be the unlikely criminal, but apparently not. *eyes him suspiciously*
All-too-brief appearance from Mona Hammond, but she still got to be there and pleasingly snarky and amused about stuff. (Her patient was wearing leather underwear, okay.)
A Coffin For the Bride
Still no Americans, but Michael Jayston has returned to his serial killing ways, after his stint as a murderous butler only a few episodes ago. (I suspect in the 60s in this AU some mad scientist started making Evil Clones and - alas, The Avengers is only a TV show in this verse, so Emma and Steed were not on hand to stop it, and look what kind of a 1970s you end up with as a result.)
He is into cunning disguises, keep fit and murdering his unfortunate older brides as soon as possible after/during the honeymoon.
Another cunning disguise! Although also proof that, attractive as Michael Jayston may be, he was not the keep fit Adonis the script keeps trying to claim. If they wanted us to believe that, they should have made him keep his shirt on.
Then he meets Helen Mirren, whom he just fancies and doesn't want to murder. (Sometimes murder does take a holiday. It goes to a health spa for a break and chats up Helen Mirren.)
... and then he meets Helen Mirren. (Her disguises are more cunning than his!)
And basically, she frames him for the murder of her non-existent other self, thus getting revenge for how no one could ever prove his actual murders were murders.
One of them had been her sister. Score to Helen Mirren! Hopefully, that is finally the end of Michael Jayston's murder career.
It should be mentioned that the US versions of Thriller were done by ITC (who part-produced it) and they added different intros and outros to each one. Most of them are pretty special one way or another, but I have to share with you the one for this where Michael Jayston is a keep-fit Adonis... and Helen Mirren is wearing a bikini for reasons unknown:
I'm the Girl He Wants to Kill
I didn't watch this one, because life's too short for all the skeevy serial killer episodes, especially if they don't have someone I like in them.
This one did have Tony Selby in, though, so have a pic of his dodgy 70s hair.
However, you will be relieved to hear at this point that everything is back to normal and this ep featured an American girl in London getting stalked by the murderer she's going to give evidence against.
Death to Sister Mary
This time Robert Palmer (or his Equally Evil Clone) is back to murder again!
He is a dodgy fan and has his sights set on Jennie Linden as an actor who plays Sister Mary in an unlikely 70s UK drama or soap about nuns and businessmen.
It's being a fandom of one that's done it. I mean, it can get to you, but you should just stick to creating a fanclub and zine and getting an autograph. Trying to preserve your idol for posterity via embalming fluid is taking fannishness too far.
I was very distracted by trying to imagine Saints & Sinners, the nuns and businessmen 70s drama series or soap. (I'm not sure which; it's certainly a soapy sort of show, anyway.) It has an Awesome Abbess and an old school theatre diva as the main businessman character. (Terrible things happen to him via a tin of cat food because he makes Jennie Linden the butt of his diva-ish-ness.) Would watch, anyway, if it hadn't been burninated or anything.
This does mean, though, we get lots of shots of the TV studios and behind-the-scenes in-jokes and things. Shame about the stalker.
It also includes an American priest (George Maharis), who helps Jennie Linden, just in case you were worried the unnatural American drought was continuing. He might be plastic, though. Father Ken, maybe? Oh, and Windsor Davis was this week's dodgy police inspector. (They're all sexist. It's probably very realistic. "Women, eh? Always claiming someone wants to kill them, lol!")
In the Steps of a Dead Man
A soldier claiming to be the best friend of another soldier who died gets taken in almost as replacement by his parents and fiancee. But the fiancee's American friend is the only one with any sense rightly suspicious of him.
Before all the questionable murdering begins. (Skye Aubrey and Denise Buckley.)
They made Richard Vernon just walk around casually crying. This sort of thing needs some kind of warning.
John Nolan as the villainous 'friend' who in fact actually murdered the dead soldier, because anything Robert Palmer can do, he can do too. (He was Robert Palmer's replacement in Doomwatch only a short while before.)
The American then locks him in the secret room that Richard Vernon made for him to hide in but which doesn't open from the inside (everybody in this is kind of dodgy) and leaves him to die.
I mean, I know, he's just murdered two people and attempted to kill two more and you might feel he deserves the death penalty, but even so, best to hand him over to the military police when you have the option and not leave him so that Richard Vernon and his wife (Faith Brook) can find him dead and rotting in the secret room later and think that it was their fault.
Questionable priorities, everybody in this episode has them.
Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are
Two young American tourists visit England, only for one of them to disappear and everyone else to claim they never saw her...
Peter Jeffrey is the police inspector sent in to investigate Lynda Day George's claim. Happily, he is neither evil nor being burnt at the stake for a wonder, but he's an appalling person. But everyone knows it and treats him as such, which is something. (Does anyone ever let Peter Jeffrey be good, apart from that time he was burnt at the stake? I mean, you can see how it might have put him onto the path of Evil, but even so...)
John Carson has a record (apart from the serial killing he did already back in Disc 1, of course) and looks like the actual villain but it turns out that Lynda Day George did the murder herself. This is what comes of visiting 1970s Britain! If you don't get murdered, you'll start being drawn into murderous habits yourself.
The Next Scream You Hear
Someone has just murdered an American businessman's wife! And whoever it is, has just framed said American businessman (Christopher George). Could it be the dodgy and sinister German colleague who doesn't like him?
Does he look like a person who would murder his wife? Hmm...
However, Dinsdale Landen is back as superior private investigate Matthew Earp who featured in one of the earlier eps, now on the case. (Which also clearly means that all of these things take place in the same universe, right? It is a 1970s AU full of evil killer clones and persistent American victims.)
He questions Suzanne Neve, who seems to be part of the frame up.
Via random kissing at parties.
AND THEN THEY HAVE A SWORD-FIGHT.
I mean, some other things happened but they had a SWORD-FIGHT. I find it hard to believe that Dinsdale Landen could beat Suzanne Neve, but, alas, the script says so, because she was evil.
She wasn't actually menacing Americans, though - they were in it together as a cunning plan to murder his wife and then frame him for it which would actually prove his innocence, because life is just one long Agatha Christie novel.
Dinsdale Landen then karate fights the American businessman, which was hilariously terrible, but not in any way a person could screen cap.
There were some other people in it and stuff, but you can't expect me to notice things when Suzanne Neve is being villainous and sword-fighting. More, please, 1970s TV! I want. (I bet no such thing exists, though.)
Nurse Will Make it Better
Moving on to the second volume, we have this instructive installment, which explains nearly everything about the nature of this terrible 1970s AU: Satan is walking around England, personally menacing Americans herself and the only one who can stop her is Patrick Troughton and he's been too drunk to do it for at least a decade, if not longer. And so naturally, as a result, the Home Counties are full of serial killers and stalkers, evil clones, and black magic worshippers.
The whole thing is giving Patrick Troughton nightmares, frankly.
He is dreaming about Vira from The Ark in Space being evil, which is a bit timey-wimey of him.
She was Satan's previous victim, even though she isn't American.
So he has to show off his chest and give us nightmares as well. ;-)
Diana Dors as Nurse Satan. She has a hat of evil and a mysterious box, which I think was meant to be like Pandora's box and contain all the sins of the world, but I don't know. I don't think a person can expect too much sense out of Thriller.
Anyway, she is based in a house full of Americans! At least one of them is secretly Canadian, but all of them are ripe for corrupting and terrorising.
Michael Culver is an English neighbour. He likes galloping about on horseback, but his favourite thing seems to be accidentally involving the daughters of the house in near-fatal accidents, which is apparently what you need in a romantic interest.
Ed Bishop is actually nice! (I'm sorry, I keep meeting him as villains and stalkers, and, um, we won't go into my feelings about UFO again, but let's just say I am not a Gerry Anderson person. (There are no strings on me. ;-p)) He is the nicest security guard in the world. It does not do him any good, or his nice guard dog, either. Diana Dors murders them both.
Patrick Troughton, our inadequate defence against Diana Dors.
This one was possibly the most fun episode, but the reveal that Diana Dors is not just an evil witch (like Diane Cilento was) but in fact Satan ironically makes the whole thing less sinister and more baffling. I mean, if Satan is one person walking around taking on and corrupting (not killing) victims individually (except for Ed Bishop), that's a lot less frightening than the general rep.
But I would definitely prefer lots more like that and far fewer skeevy sex killers.
Night is the Time for Killing
This one had a spy who wanted to meet Charles Gray (because he was a very distinctive person the spy would recognise) on a train but then someone murdered Charles Gray and impersonated him and Judy Geeson was the only one who spotted the fact.
However, it riffed very heavily on The Lady Vanishes. It was not anything like as good as The Lady Vanishes by any means. And even though Charles Gray impersonated himself, it wasn't my favourite thing. (Also, I suspect a lot of Thriller eps must be riffs on films and things, but thrillers and horror are mostly not my genre, so I don't have a clue.)
Judy Geeson, being thought mad by everyone. Poor Judy Geeson. Poor everyone, but it's another round of "hysterical women imagining killers everywhere!" Well, guess what, Thriller-land police - there are killers everywhere!
Charles Gray, hating being on a train and entertainingly complaining about everything.
Sadly, he gets murdered by Jacki Piper from the Carry On films...
... who is working with Duncan Preston, who puts on a mask and magically becomes Charles Gray until the very last minute in the fight at the end where he is just Duncan Preston in a mask. It's lucky this is a universe where supernatural powers exist, or that'd just be silly.
This disc also had an episode called "Screamer" which I skipped because I was tired of skeevy sex killers and it sounded like another one.
And we'll stop there, because that's probably more than enough for one post and also because the next disc is refusing to be screencapped, so I need to battle with it some more.
* Also made only a few years later by ATV. I keep feeling that I'm pretty sure I've seen all these clocks and looming staircases before...
Crossposted from Dreamwidth. Please click through to comment. -- Current comments: