30 October - 5 December 1979
3203 - 3224
Well, things have moved merrily along in
Xrds. In just a month and a bit, there’s been a lot happening.
Alison has defied her uncle Reg to venture out to the village and the motel, becoming friends with Florence. With Dr Smooth’s storyline expended, Dr Butterworth has returned to impose medical support on Alison, with kind-hearted Benny paying for her to have private corrective cosmetic surgery to minimise the scar. Reg has lashed out at Benny, causing him to go on the run once again, not realising that Reg is fast coming round to the new, independent Alison.
The series’ most recent snake in the grass has been the sneaky former teacher Richard Lord and his love interest, the obligatory Barton-era Sloane Ranger type, Joanne Dobie (is it telling that, an episode or two after their departures I had to look up their names). Lord spent most of his time looking arch and ripping up letters that had just been typed, which got old very quickly.
I struggled with the angle that Meg was so quick to doubt David’s competence as a result of Lord’s gaslighting. And it seemed odd that Sandy was completely on board with David but didn’t communicate his feelings on the matter to Meg either. However, the conflict was interesting enough for me to overlook it.
Thinking about it,
Xrds has a lot of redemption type stories, where someone who has either done wrong or is misunderstood is given something of a chance by the kind
Xrds souls and ends up revealing a soft underbelly that we hoped they always had. What really made the Richard Lord arc work was that it subverted this kind of storytelling, with him playing the part of the aggrieved and misunderstood person who simply wanted a second chance when in reality he was hellbent on screwing everyone over for his own gain.
He’s now departed, with David being vindicated thanks to some help from Joanne who turned out to be not so bad (she even got herself a whack on the face from ex-teacher for her trouble). Despite David’s offer Joanne, too, departed which rather surprised me since it seemed rather permanent to set her up in a new home (and a brand new set with bay window and everything) which she shared with Fay Mansfield’s rather common friend, Anna Drew.
As Anna, Dawn Perllmann’s the archetypal late-Seventies pretty/brassy type you’d expect to find in a late-era
Carry On or playing a friend of the daughter in a sitcom. There’s something of the Susie Birchall to her, as well. She’s a bit gobby and a bit hard (especially when it comes to poor Giles, whom she feels is expendable now that Sandy’s in the picture), but she has a heart of gold. She’s also what my Mum would probably have called a “dirty mare”, serving sliced ham onto people’s plates with her bare hand as they sit round the table at a dinner party (“‘scuse fingers” is one of her mantras), and noisily sucking butter off her fingers after preparing sandwiches. Most unhygienic.
Anna’s almost-ex Giles is an interesting one. For most of his first scene I thought we were seeing Xrds first overtly gay characters, so it was a little surprising to find he was THE Giles we’d heard about. He’s a loveable buffoon, first infuriating guests by throwing pots onto his wheel at all hours of the night creating a mystery noise. Then - after Anna brutally told him how bad the end results of his hobby were - he threw his equipment into a nearby quarry and had huge quantities of straw delivered, prompting concerns that he was keeping a horse in his chalet until it was revealed that his new hobby is making straw dollies (remember those?). Incredibly, ALL of this series of events happened offscreen, with
Xrds making good use of the “tell, don’t show” policy (which I most associate with
Cagney & Lacey) for its subplots.
One of the bigger dramatic storylines of this series of episodes has been the tug of love over Sarah Jane (indeed, the term “tug of love” was even used). These weeks have seen Jill facing court and absconding with Sarah Jane resulting in a warrant being issued for Jill’s arrest. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, Jill returned and offered Stan and Fräulein Offermans custody of Sarah Jane after Sarah Jane ended up in hospital ill from the stress of it all.
Once again, the “tell, don’t show” policy has been king with this storyline. Some no doubt necessitates from budget and whatnot. There were one or two courtroom scenes, but the big ones all happened offscreen. However, the biggest problem with the “Harvey vs. Harvey” storyline is that there has been no Stan. I mean, yes, he’s apparently been at court and at Sarah Jane’s hospital bed and on the phone to Freya Offermans (inexplicably staying at Chimneys at Stan’s behest to await Jill’s return, with full cooperation from Meg). But we haven’t seen him. I’m assuming this is due to Edward Clayton’s unavailability, but whatever the reason it’s stopped this story achieving its full potential. Jennifer Watts has done good work as a substitute, but there’s no escaping that her character is just that. However, one good thing to come from the storyline’s resolution is that (unlike in many mentions of him post Edward Clayton), Stan hasn’t been painted wholly as The Bad Guy of the piece. Jill’s description of the quiet ease between them when she spoke of their meeting at Sarah Jane’s hospital bedside was very welcome because it described the man I remember Stan to be. Likewise, him signing over Chimeys to Jill represented the Stan I know.
With most of these storylines wrapping up, and many of those involved now being cycled out of the series (which I’m only just getting used to with this series), it feels with the latter episodes of this run we’re entering another fresh new era. Happily, most of the "new" faces are returnees: no sooner has Diane returned than Steve Cater is at her door, back in uniform and the status quo of their earlier pairing somewhat resumed (albeit with a little more baggage). Glenda’s back (although the dialogue suggests she’s always been around) and stirring it up with the newly returned Doris Luke by telling her all about Benny getting into trouble over a girl and offering to pay for her operation. Meanwhile, old Cyril Watkins appears to have been written out in a casual line of dialogue from Doris about him wanting to visit New Zealand. That’s showbiz, I suppose.
Part One of the final episode of this run saw a very rare “Take 2” (the first I remember seeing for literally years’ worth of episodes). Naturally, I had a beady eye open to try and work out where it could have gone wrong. At eight minutes, it was a shorter than usual Part One and ended with Diane and Steve chatting. However, my guess would be it was the lengthy scene which saw the returns of Doris and Glenda and also featured Florence. It’s possibly the most dialogue Florence has had in one scene and, given her recent track record of on-screen fluffs, I couldn’t help guessing (perhaps unfairly) that Jenny Tomasin might have been the culprit.
