Tenko/Rivals of Sherlock Holmes
29 Jul 2017 08:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Another of the things I've watched in the period since May, courtesy of the Drama channel, is the 1980s BBC WWII drama Tenko.
I knew that this featured Stephanie Beacham and Louise Jameson, and was largely written by some of the people who were responsible for Wish Me Luck (and some of The House of Eliott), and was about women PoW in Japanese internee camps in Singapore in WWII. And since I like both WML & HoE (both v female-centric 80s & 90s historical dramas) and also things that feature people trapped in relatively small spaces and ensemble casts, I recorded it.
I would write a sensible review, but what I didn't know was that:
Stephanie Cole is in it as a curmudgeonly lesbian atheist doctor who winds up making fast friends with a fearsome Dutch nun, even though she doesn't understand how that is a thing that is a thing. MY HEART.
But, yeah. It's addictive, your mileage will almost certainly vary, has a high death count (something like 14 regulars, mostly in the first season and a half, die, on or off screen), and MY HEART. I think probably I shall be requesting it for Yuletide.
It walks quite an difficult line and mostly, I felt, pretty well, given the subject matter and the fact that the majority of its main characters are privileged and prejudiced, being British (and Dutch) in Singapore, save for one storyline in The Reunion (which isn't bad as such, but they needed a whole series to tackle it properly if they were going to go there; as it is, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth). But YMMV, and I was a bit distracted by all the HEARTS IN MY EYES for most of it.
Anyway, this is why I'm relieved I can watch Secret Army and mostly just think, "Hmm, after this, I have to rewatch 'Allo 'Allo, don't I?" I can't go round casually giving my heart to every problematic old TV show that comes along, or what would be left of me?
I also bought S2 of ITV's 70s anthology series, The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes with my birthday money. As the name implies, this is a set of dramatisations of other late Victorian detectives who aren't Sherlock. I got S2 because it promised me more Douglas Wilmer (BBC 1960s Sherlock), and a guest appearance from Suzanne Neve. I'll talk about the rest sometime, as I've deserted it for Department S for the moment. (Not because it was bad, but because it cries out to be watched in winter, and also I wanted a series to get into as opposed to an anthology.)
Anyway, Suzanne Neve guested in "The Absent-Minded Coterie", featuring Charles Gray as M. Valmont, France's greatest amateur detective (which you can find here at YT if you weren't lucky enough to get it in the Network sale), and I will pause to note it here, because it turned out to be made of all the things I like. I mean, if you combined Inspector Neele/Mary Dove's dynamic with Poirot and Sherlock Holmes and Adam Adamant, this is pretty much what you get, with bonus Suzanne Neve. Anyway, clearly a thing calculated to please me is not going to please everyone else, but I am delighted to inform you that France's premier amateur detective is not up to outwitting Suzanne Neve and that she gets to appear mysteriously out of the fog and commit crimes and then be smug while wearing epic hats. I recced it to
john_amend_all because the above things are a lot of where our likes meet, and he informed me that the original story doesn't even have Suzanne Neve's character (Miss Mackail) in it, so sometimes 1970s adaptors take the best liberties with things.



Scotland Yard and France's finest amateur detective are baffled!


The only downside was that it was quite hard to get any good shots of Suzanne rather than her hats.
Anyway, that was a thing that I shall no doubt rewatch on several occasions.
I knew that this featured Stephanie Beacham and Louise Jameson, and was largely written by some of the people who were responsible for Wish Me Luck (and some of The House of Eliott), and was about women PoW in Japanese internee camps in Singapore in WWII. And since I like both WML & HoE (both v female-centric 80s & 90s historical dramas) and also things that feature people trapped in relatively small spaces and ensemble casts, I recorded it.
I would write a sensible review, but what I didn't know was that:
Stephanie Cole is in it as a curmudgeonly lesbian atheist doctor who winds up making fast friends with a fearsome Dutch nun, even though she doesn't understand how that is a thing that is a thing. MY HEART.
But, yeah. It's addictive, your mileage will almost certainly vary, has a high death count (something like 14 regulars, mostly in the first season and a half, die, on or off screen), and MY HEART. I think probably I shall be requesting it for Yuletide.
It walks quite an difficult line and mostly, I felt, pretty well, given the subject matter and the fact that the majority of its main characters are privileged and prejudiced, being British (and Dutch) in Singapore, save for one storyline in The Reunion (which isn't bad as such, but they needed a whole series to tackle it properly if they were going to go there; as it is, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth). But YMMV, and I was a bit distracted by all the HEARTS IN MY EYES for most of it.
Anyway, this is why I'm relieved I can watch Secret Army and mostly just think, "Hmm, after this, I have to rewatch 'Allo 'Allo, don't I?" I can't go round casually giving my heart to every problematic old TV show that comes along, or what would be left of me?
I also bought S2 of ITV's 70s anthology series, The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes with my birthday money. As the name implies, this is a set of dramatisations of other late Victorian detectives who aren't Sherlock. I got S2 because it promised me more Douglas Wilmer (BBC 1960s Sherlock), and a guest appearance from Suzanne Neve. I'll talk about the rest sometime, as I've deserted it for Department S for the moment. (Not because it was bad, but because it cries out to be watched in winter, and also I wanted a series to get into as opposed to an anthology.)
Anyway, Suzanne Neve guested in "The Absent-Minded Coterie", featuring Charles Gray as M. Valmont, France's greatest amateur detective (which you can find here at YT if you weren't lucky enough to get it in the Network sale), and I will pause to note it here, because it turned out to be made of all the things I like. I mean, if you combined Inspector Neele/Mary Dove's dynamic with Poirot and Sherlock Holmes and Adam Adamant, this is pretty much what you get, with bonus Suzanne Neve. Anyway, clearly a thing calculated to please me is not going to please everyone else, but I am delighted to inform you that France's premier amateur detective is not up to outwitting Suzanne Neve and that she gets to appear mysteriously out of the fog and commit crimes and then be smug while wearing epic hats. I recced it to
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)



Scotland Yard and France's finest amateur detective are baffled!


The only downside was that it was quite hard to get any good shots of Suzanne rather than her hats.
Anyway, that was a thing that I shall no doubt rewatch on several occasions.
no subject
Date: 31 Jul 2017 06:14 pm (UTC)The novelisations are worth trying to get your hands on. They aren't spectacularly well written or anything, but some of the plots that were watered down on screen are treated more realistically in the novels.
In the last year or two a brilliant book was brought out on the series, with some fascinating historic detail about just how much work it took to get the series commissioned in the first place. It's called Remembering Tenko and it is by Andy Priestner.
I love Bea. (How can you not love Stephanie Cole in everything she has ever done?) But the character that always intrigued me the most was one quite a bit less likeable. If I ever wrote fic for Tenko, I'd probably make it Dorothy-centric.
Love that you have found and embraced this show!
Oh, and have a smashing visit with your family this week. :)
no subject
Date: 8 Aug 2017 12:22 pm (UTC)Aww. I was younger than that when it was first on, but I was about that age when I saw Wish Me Luck, which was made by several of the same people and even though it was a bit too old/scary for me, I also adored it. 80s videotape and WWII women in the Resistance! I think we need the things like that, as well as the more 'appropriate' ones.
Thanks for the book recs! I don't know if I can get hold of them, but I'd never have thought of looking, because old TV tie-ins are usually so terrible.
I love Bea. (How can you not love Stephanie Cole in everything she has ever done?) But the character that always intrigued me the most was one quite a bit less likeable. If I ever wrote fic for Tenko, I'd probably make it Dorothy-centric.
Oh, I really liked Dorothy, too, and her relationship with Sister Ulrica as well. But as you say Stephanie Cole is just amazing, and I hadn't had any idea she was in it, or who she was and Ulrica and Bea just stole my heart with their relationship.
<3