"You're not thirty minutes early, you're six days late!"

[thisbluespirit]

1. I think I actually do feel better! I am back to my usual level of rubbish, at least for now. I hate to jinx it by typing something like that, which is generally asking for trouble, but here's hoping...


2. I think my Yuletide letter is almost done. \o/ (I just have to check it again first.)


3. Not unrelatedly, I have discovered that someone has a lot of Department S episodes up on Dailymotion, starting with episode 1 Six Days! This is still my favourite ITC offering! I promised last summer to make a post all about it, but I still haven't, whoops, although I did post some trailers and things here.

Basically it is about an international team who investigate extremely weird scenarios - like how can a plane be six days late when its pilot thinks it's thirty minutes early? Why did an astronaut die of oxygen starvation in the middle of London? Why is there a fake room with a dead body in a warehouse and what's with all these plastic dummies driving cars?

These things are investigated by Stewart Sullivan (Joel Fabiani), whose talents are generally being drugged and tied up a lot, I think; Annabelle Hurst (Rosemary Nicols), computer expert, and Jason King (Peter Wyngarde) who just uses authorly imagination, flirting, and probably his terrifying moustache. Their boss is diplomat Sir Curtis Seretse (Dennis Alaba Peters) who likes giving Stewart cases in far-flung locations and gets kidnapped every so often. Episodes vary, of course, but I found it v engaging & on film, unlike a lot of the old telly things I watch, and Jason being a writer gives it a fun meta commentary at times, Annabelle gets a better deal than any other ITC female lead I've yet seen, while Sir Curtis makes it refreshingly a lot less racist than most 60s things. Also whole villages just vanish overnight, and a lot of familiar faces are responsible.

Anyway, if anyone should want to watch it & can't get the DVDs, there is a way - for the moment! And then you can write me Yule-fic. *looks innocent*

Comments

[sovay]

like how can a plane be six days late when its pilot thinks it's thirty minutes early? Why did an astronaut die of oxygen starvation in the middle of London? Why is there a fake room with a dead body in a warehouse and what's with all these plastic dummies driving cars?

Do the weird scenarios have satisfying explanations or is that not the point of the show?

Episodes vary, of course, but I found it v engaging & on film, unlike a lot of the old telly things I watch, and Jason being a writer gives it a fun meta commentary at times, Annabelle gets a better deal than any other ITC female lead I've yet seen, while Sir Curtis makes it refreshingly a lot less racist than most 60s things.

Awesome!

[thisbluespirit]

They all have explanations, yes. :-) (Unlike S&S!)

[st_aurafina]

Yay for feeling better! Fingers crossed it continues.

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, thanks! And, hi, hello! <3

[tinfoilvardan]

Sounds an amazing show. I sadly haven't watched much ICT stuff, but I am hoping that in the future I can give myself time to watch them. From what I've seen, that era of television is very bright, colourful and inventive.

[thisbluespirit]

It is often colourful! I tend to have very mixed feelings about ITC shows, because of how formulaic they had to be to be networked in the US (there's a different sort of sexism common to them that I find hard to swallow, for instance), but some of them are fun - and I really did love Department S. I felt it side-stepped a lot of the typical ITC things.

A lot of the Freeview channels keep re-running loads of them lately, so if you keep an eye out, you should be able to catch a few of them. (I've not seen anyone run Department S yet, though.)

[liadt]

I hope you get all the fainting you desire! And no hidden kids in the tower!!!

[thisbluespirit]

Heh, thank you!

[swordznsorcery]

I still think you're nuts for preferring this one over "The Champions". :p It is a fun show though, with some great story ideas, and that theme tune is wonderful.

[thisbluespirit]

The Champions only had 1 out of 3 human beings in the lead roles! (The other two were possibly actually Barbie and Ken?) It was scary and very ITC! Also they blew up James Maxwell excessively. /o\

[swordznsorcery]

Did they blow him up? I thought they only gassed him. Although probably they blew him up as well, now you come to mention it. They kept blowing things up. Usually with nuclear bombs. Saving the world by repeatedly irradiating it!

I love the cast. And I love how much they love each other, and clearly enjoy their reunion for the DVD extras. :) But yes, it is very ITC. "Department S" does have a very different feel to it somehow.

How have you been getting on with "The Protectors"? Or have you been (probably wisely!) avoiding it?

[thisbluespirit]

Although probably they blew him up as well, now you come to mention it.

They were very thorough about it. I'm pretty sure they blew up the whole island he was on, because you once claimed he wound up deader than David Collings in it. (Ridiculous, obv. they had a massive war, poisonous chemical fallout, and nuclear explosions that destroyed the entire world one time David Collings got killed.)

It is sad and annoying that I have an ITC allergy! I would be a happier old telly fan if I didn't, but there we are. At least I like some of them sometimes.

How have you been getting on with "The Protectors"? Or have you been (probably wisely!) avoiding it?

They've been showing it very slowly, and I've only watched 2 episodes. It's a bit of an oddity as you say - with the half hour format there's barely enough of anything to like or dislike. It feels very weird!

[swordznsorcery]

It is foolish to try to out-dead David Collings. :)

There's a great guest cast at times on "The Protectors". Certainly from that point of view it's worth a look. It's as though nobody quite knew what they were making, though. Half hour shows had been quite popular just a few years previously, and there had been some very successful ones, so clearly it was possible to do a drama series in that time frame (and of course "The Bill" managed well enough later). Yet somehow "The Protectors" comes across as a fifty minute show edited down, with all the best bits cut out. Very weird is a good description!

[thisbluespirit]

Yet somehow "The Protectors" comes across as a fifty minute show edited down, with all the best bits cut out.

Either that, or just the best bits, but you're not entirely sure what happened in the bits in between. So far, anyway. Certainly it's fairly painless!