ORBzine - TV Reviews March 2000
Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) [2001-2]
[ Season 1 ! Season 2 ]
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In a mansion hotel in the English, a female ghost possesses the chambermaid and kills a hotel guest by spontaneous combustion. Jeff and Jeanie [ Emilia Fox ] are called in to investigate. The hotel runs ghost tours. The guests include a New Ager, a couple of middle-aged Mediums and Hywel Bennet [Neverwhere] as a seedy tabloid hack. Only one of them has the second sight ... Since Jeff's memories were erased at the end of last Season, Marty must return and re-introduce himself. Marty has learned a new supernatural skill: the power to shrink shoes.
Jeff's Ex hires him to look for her missing father. Jeanie gets jealous. . . .
A young man is found murdered on a remore Scottish island, Strait Isle. Jeff and Jeanie are called in to investigate. The island is run by a Laird, and is filled with slack-jawed yokels [including Charlie Higson's compulsory cameo, in sideburns and belly padding]. They have ancient Celtic traditions and such-like, so the automatic implication is that something will happen as in The Wicker Man . This is a load of typical racist crap. I mean, could they portray Black Africans in such a way? The second finger of suspicion is pointed when the dead man is revealed to have been gay. The island's population has very old-fashioned views about such things. As a sub-plot, something in the locally-brewed beer is affecting the population. Jeanie and the Pub Landlady become super-horny for Jeff, while all the men begin to act gay. Jeff cannot drink alcohol because he is on medication, so is thus immune to the gayness. It would have been far better if he had become gay himself: it's hypocritical for him to have the attitude there's nothing wrong with gayness, as long as it doesn't affect me. The third element to the story involves a secret lab called Gender Tech ...
Jeff and Jeanie are hired by the Civil Service Toffs from Season One [including Charlie Higson's compulsory cameo, in suit and bowler hat]. In a mission straight out of Conrad's Heart of Darkness they are sent out to terminate the command of Colonel Anger [Derek Jacobi - ]. Jeff and Jeanie, with false identities as scientists, venture to Anger's secret HQ underneath a golf-course. Dervla Kerwin plays his femme fatale sidekick, clad in a sexy red jumpsuit. Anger's toys include an Orgasmatron straight out of Barbarella .
A new company moves into the offices beside Jeff and Jeanies'. It's a private investigations partnership, a couple of black guys named Marshall & Snellgrove. Jeff and Jeanie are hired to protect an eccentric millionaire from his equally eccentric twin brother. When Jeff and Jeanie turn up at the house, they find the two brothers share it. Worse, the other twin hired Marshall & Snellgrove as his bodyguards. .
Charlie Higson was not just the writer of the episode but also the director. Into the bargain he has a cameo as Jeff's client at the start of the episode. Jeff and Jeanie are summoned to the Baltic States by their ex-employee Pauline Quirke. Her husband and baby have been kidnapped ... .
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Randall & Hopkirk, Deceased [Season 2, Episode 1]
What Possessed You?
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