I’ve been watching a classic British cop drama called Juliet Bravo. It ran from 1980 to 1985, focusing on the lives of the police officers in the small town of Hartley, led by Inspector Jean Darblay (Stephanie Turner). I believe Darblay was replaced by another character later on.

It’s low-key stuff, being set in a small town. You won’t find big drugs gangs or international smugglers. It also focuses on the personal lives of the officers.

It really does represent a different era, which is what you’d expect from a show that old.

In one Season 2 episode, Darblay meets the new superintendent, Albert Hallam. In one scene, Hallam, who disapproves of women officers in higher ranks, says to Darblay, “I find it astonishing that a woman would be given this job. I think you should transfer to a desk job at HQ.” I may be paraphrasing slightly.

That does show how far society has advanced, in a good way. I suspect Hallam’s attitude might have been the norm among some officers. If someone like Hallam made comments like that today, he’d be referred to the personnel team/a disciplinary board and possibly demoted or sacked.

Also, it really does feel like another era (which it is is, I guess) when you look at the attire. The officers walk the beat wearing a tunic, and carrying only a truncheon, radio, handcuffs and a whistle. A UK cop today would wear a stab-proof vest, and carry a truncheon (or an asp), pepper spray, handcuffs, radio, mobile phone, etc (with some carrying guns). The passage of time, eh?

Some stock photos I found really sum up the change in equipment/attire well:

I've seen bits and pieces of Cadfael, from back in the day, on Mystery, on PBS. Good show, though how could it not be, with Derek Jacobi. The book series was a regular seller, in our Mystery section, at B&N (back when they had more than two books of an author's back catalogue). The period setting makes for a nice change of pace, which was one of the reasons I always liked Hec Ramsey, on the NBC Mystery Movie wheel, with Richard Boone. It was a late period western detective series, with Boone as a lawman who comes to work for the force on a growing town, employing new criminology techniques, like plaster casts of footprints and fingerprints and ballistics analysis. He also carries a shorter barreled revolver, more akin to later detective specials, though still a single action pistol. The writing on those wasn't quite as good as Columbo or even Cadfael, but they were pretty good shows. A dispute with the network led to Richard Boone declining to return and it was put to rest with only about a dozen episodes.

The Juliet Bravo comments remind me of the media discussion that preceded the first PBS broadcast of the initial Prime Suspect, with Helen Mirren. Sexism within the police force is a major element of that first series and the newspaper pieces mentioned how it kind of led to discussions about barriers for women in the workplace, similar to how Anita Hill's Thomas confirmation hearings sparked a debate about harassment in the workplace. OPne of the great things about Prime Suspect is seeing Tennison take her male colleagues down a peg, then catch the serial killer and have the evidence to make it stick, after the initial investigation mis-identified a victim and created a situation that wouldn't stand up in court. There is a nice throughline of the first four series of the returning characters coming to respect Tennison and even going to bat for her.

Sixty years ago today, The Outer Limits debuted on ABC.

They started showing the series last year here on Talking Pictures TV, it was the first time I saw it. The premiere - “The Galaxy Being” - was a good episode, a bit eerie in places.

I must confess, I did expect something akin to The Twilight Zone, with mysticism and twists, but this is a different kind of show, I guess.

I like this tweet:

Finished up a re-watch of season one of Deadwood.  Just a great show with so many amazing performances by Ian McShane, Timothy Olyphant, Brad Dourif and an underrated turn by Keith Carradine as Wild Bill Hickock (I have a bio of him coming up on my reading list soonish).  Looking forward to keeping on with the next two season (too bad it was cut short as so many HBO shows were at the time).  

I loved Grace & Favour, though it was shown on American PBS as Are You being Served Again...which one of the cast said they felt was the better title, as it gave a clearer indication of what the show was. They said, in the UK, there was a bit of confusion or lack of name recognition that caused their viewership to be relatively lower. It did well on PBS stations.

Overall, I like it and the setting, as well as the additional characters. Mr Moleturd makes for a great "character" and his knowledge of the younger Mrs Slocombe makes for a fun dynamic. Similarly, Mavis' attraction to Mr Humphries makes for a lot of laughs; but, it also has a sweetness to it that is endearing.

The episode where Capt Peacock finds a German Walther P-38, in a drawer (which he calls a Luger and no veteran of WW2 would ever mistake a Luger for a P-38, as they were prized souvenirs) and the ensuing chaos, with the police, is hysterical. The day in court, for Mrs Slocomb (for "stealing" a horse & buggy) is a lot of fun, especially when Miss Brahms tries to flirt with the male magistrate and the female one winks back at her. the stunned look on Wendy Richards' face was priceless. I loved that they followed up with it, in the cricket episode (which is also fun and did more to explain the rules of cricket to me). The episode with Mr Slocombe as a prospective buyer of the property is terrific farce. The "haunted" episode, where they find a dead cat's corpse in a wall, is also hysterical.

I wish they had gotten another series or two, as there was life in the premise. Trevor Bannister remarked that it didn't work, since they didn't have the pecking order and class distinctions; but, I felt it worked because it was those beloved characters, in a new environment, trying to make ends meet, with even more insane neighbors and guests. It allowed for different situations that added a freshness to it, even when they recycled some of the jokes. In the original form, it was pretty well played out by the time Trevor Bannister left, though they still had many great episodes, each series. They just seemed to be the same situations, leading to the same jokes; but, you loved the cast and their timing was so impeccable that you still wanted to laugh and laughed even harder by anticipating the usual response.

I feel it was a better attempt at revisiting the old show than the remake (I sat through about 10 minutes of an episode and then turned it off) or the other remakes of classic series (like Reggie Perrin)