The Hidden Truth (TV Series) A Question of Involvement (1964) User Reviews

A Question of Involvement

[Prismark10 · 5/10 · 23 November 2021]

With Professor Lazard away. Dr Henry Fox is sent to a small village when a woman's body is found in the river.

The local police chief suspects the handyman in the grounds of the house. His wife provides him with an alibi but that later breaks down.

The couple moved to the village a few years ago and never seemed to have settled. They suffer from malicious gossip by the villagers and this is what excites the police.

The handyman can be quick tempered.

Dr Fox is not sure that the forensics is there to charge him. The police chief begs to differ.

I did think the episode ended rather abruptly. The locals were a nasty lot. It soon becomes clear that the handyman suffers from shell shock due to the war. Hence why he can be short tempered.

It really difficult to say more about the series when one of the main characters is absent for most of the episode.

It is notable that an Indian origin actor Zia Mohyeddin has a major role as Dr de Silva.

I would love to rate this much higher...

[boilerhogs · 5/10 · 11 January 2022]

...but is there a reel missing? Are you never meant to know the truth? I was *SO* excited to see a forensics programme that is older than I am!

However, as it stands now, an innocent man (a shell-shocked WWII vet, no less) is about to be railroaded into a hanging at worst, and/or forever tarred with the assumption of guilt by the gossipy, tiny-minded horrors they call neighbours. These people are the worst, and they already think the worst of them anyway. And this much-maligned couple will have to start over elsewhere. Again. And the monster who framed him goes free to kill at the next opportunity he gets. The show is unfinished. It ended far too abruptly...seemingly mid-sentence, if I'm being honest. I had rather enjoyed it, I liked the actors, etc. Until the "end".

I don't appreciate a show/film that either assumes the audience is far too slow and dull to interpret nuanced material (therefore over-explaining), nor the inference that everyone is bright and broad-minded enough to ferret out some obscure (or in this case, completely absent) point.

I get that there is a "moral" and "life lessons to be learned", humans are fallible (blah blah) element here. But I really don't know what the showrunners/writers were thinking. Was British television really this subjective, or is it possible that it was meant to be two parts, or the last bit is lost? Not sure I'm willing to watch the other two recently-found episodes, as I'm really bothered by this. I need closure! 😆

A forerunner of The Expert....

[mch2469 · 8/10 · 29 October 2021]

I have watched this episode and one other in this series..... the series follows a group of pathology and scientific experts who act on behalf of the crown to provide forensic evidence to an investigation..... the lead character is in charge of this department and is the pathologist who undertakes the autopsy of those who have died in questionable circumstances.

In this episode, a young woman is found floating in a pond set in the ground of a private house which is looked after by a married couple acting as housekeeper and handyman respectively....for the owners of the property. The location is set in a small village and the story follows the team of pathologists called in by the local police to carry out forensics and the autopsy.

The investigations are hindered by the gossip and assumptions of the local people who don't like this couple because they are strangers to the village.... the police also seem determined to find the couple and particularly the husband, who was injured in the war and since then has had mental issues and because of that he and his wife took the job as caretaker to escape London and the shadow of the husband's mental health ..... The facts found by the forensics team don't support the firm belief, by the Senior police officer investigating the death, that the Husband was the murderer..... The story goes to highlight the damage that gossip and personal biases can have on an investigation within a small community and how the press then print these opinions and rumours without any proof that the person being printed about is actually involved or indeed that the rumours printed are true...! The fallout from all this is that whether the husband is or isn't guilty his life and his wife's will never be the same because of the actions of the villagers and the police who are all convinced that the husband is guilty of murder without any proof indeed there appears to be proof that this husband didn't murder this young girl and that she met her death and the disposal of her body by someone in an unknown car parked on the lane near the pond on the day this stranger was seen there and the victim was murdered..... It's a good episode but both episodes I have seen come across as trying to teach the watcher a lesson in what is and isn't the right Thing to do..... in this case the gossiping and rumours etc and in the other was about drugs and teenagers and again seemed to be some sort of 'finger wag' at the viewers.... I much prefer The Expert with Marius Goring that followed a few years later but these episodes were enjoyable and interesting and worth your time if you get the opportunity to see them..