Since I've revisited the series HAMMER HOUSE OF HORROR I decided to watch another fondly remembered anthology series shown on Saturday nights on ITV in the 1970s THRILLER created by Brian Clemens who took Sydney Newman's premise of THE AVENGERS and turned it in to one of the most memorable and successful series ever produced in Britain . A problem I had though was where to start in viewing an almost forgotten series ? I'm not in the mood to view each and every episode in chronological order so looked up the series on this site and found Coffin For The Bride and I'm The Girl He Wants To Kill had considerably higher average votes than the other episodes so these were the ones I decided to seek out
First thing I noticed - and this confirmed my memory of the show - is that the production values are somewhat dated . Nearly all the scenes are studio interiors shot on videotape but this isn't necessarily a criticism . Nowadays if you switch through channels on British cable stations and you come across a TV show from the 1970s it'll likely be THE SWEENEY or THE PROFESSIONALS thereby creating a myth that a great number of shows from this period were shot entirely on film and on location but in reality very very few shows got this treatment and the vast majority of productions were VT which means they have a rather stagy feel . The second noticeable thing is the clunky dialogue were exposition is treated in a very clumsy manner where character A refers to something character B knows and character B feels the need to reiterate something they already know back to character A
That said the episode does pick up and it's quickly revealed that Michael Jayston's character Mark Walker is marrying fat ugly middle aged women so he can kill them , make it look like it was an accident and inherit their money . While staying at a health farm he quickly notices a pretty blond woman called Stella and manages to chat her up He then quickly notices another patron to the health farm Angela who he just happens to have inherited a large amount of money after the death of her husband and realises she's perfect dead wife material Personally I don't begrudge him a penny . Okay it's hard to condone murder but be honest lads would you want to perform any marital duties on middle aged , loud , ugly middle aged Angela ? I know I wouldn't and killing Angela might actually benefit the species as a whole
Alas however when we see Walker starting to hatch his plan there's two ways things can go . One is that he's unfortunate enough to have met a female version of himself or the other one which is Angela isn't who she says she is and I did manage to work this was where the twist ending was heading so despite the ending being preposterous and unlikely it was by no means surprising and even has one of those scenes where a character shows up in the prison visiting room stating their motives for it just in case the audience haven't managed to work things out for themselves . That said the episode isn't a dead loss and is worth watching if only to see a young and not unattractive Helen Mirren long before she became a household name
First thing I noticed - and this confirmed my memory of the show - is that the production values are somewhat dated . Nearly all the scenes are studio interiors shot on videotape but this isn't necessarily a criticism . Nowadays if you switch through channels on British cable stations and you come across a TV show from the 1970s it'll likely be THE SWEENEY or THE PROFESSIONALS thereby creating a myth that a great number of shows from this period were shot entirely on film and on location but in reality very very few shows got this treatment and the vast majority of productions were VT which means they have a rather stagy feel . The second noticeable thing is the clunky dialogue were exposition is treated in a very clumsy manner where character A refers to something character B knows and character B feels the need to reiterate something they already know back to character A
That said the episode does pick up and it's quickly revealed that Michael Jayston's character Mark Walker is marrying fat ugly middle aged women so he can kill them , make it look like it was an accident and inherit their money . While staying at a health farm he quickly notices a pretty blond woman called Stella and manages to chat her up He then quickly notices another patron to the health farm Angela who he just happens to have inherited a large amount of money after the death of her husband and realises she's perfect dead wife material Personally I don't begrudge him a penny . Okay it's hard to condone murder but be honest lads would you want to perform any marital duties on middle aged , loud , ugly middle aged Angela ? I know I wouldn't and killing Angela might actually benefit the species as a whole
Alas however when we see Walker starting to hatch his plan there's two ways things can go . One is that he's unfortunate enough to have met a female version of himself or the other one which is Angela isn't who she says she is and I did manage to work this was where the twist ending was heading so despite the ending being preposterous and unlikely it was by no means surprising and even has one of those scenes where a character shows up in the prison visiting room stating their motives for it just in case the audience haven't managed to work things out for themselves . That said the episode isn't a dead loss and is worth watching if only to see a young and not unattractive Helen Mirren long before she became a household name