#exists mainly to make cups of tea for overwrought witnesses.. such is 70s tv alas | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mariocki · 2 months ago

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New Scotland Yard: The Palais Romeo (1.4, LWT, 1972)

"We haven't had a PM yet. We haven't gone over the suspect's possessions, we haven't got the results from the trunk. We haven't seen this man Sawyer yet, the man who helped him carry it. There are five hundred things we haven't had time to examine. How can you make an arrest? You said yourself: a conclusion is a conclusion established when all the facts have been brought to light."

#new scotland yard #the palais romeo #classic tv #lwt #1972 #bill bain #stuart douglass #john woodvine #john carlisle #richard o'callaghan #barry warren #claire warren #john mckelvey #susan richards #terence soall #robert hartley #colin rix #pauline stroud #godfrey jackman #peter porteous #a more generic cop show plot (a killer is targeting middle aged women) gets used to finally start developing these characters for the #audience; we learn quite a lot more about Woodvine here‚ including some background on his separation from his wife (which threatens #to impact his handling of the case)‚ and his relationship with Carlisle‚ which has so far been.. a little frosty shall we say? well here #it's downright uncomfortable. it's a curious choice: cop shows of the era didn't shy away from having some element of conflict in the inter #personal relationships of their characters (Z Cars and Softly Softly did it‚ The Sweeney a bit later) but that was always balanced by a #sense of camaraderie too. but our leads here seem at times to genuinely dislike each other on a personal level‚ and their butting of heads #culminates here in a shouting match that threatens to end their working relationship (it doesn't of course). lovely Richard O'Callaghan is #the main suspect but of course he's much too lovely to be guilty... despite the plot being about attacks on women this continues to be #a very blokey example of an already overly masculine genre; Stroud's WPC appears to be a recurring character but isn't even named and #exists mainly to make cups of tea for overwrought witnesses.. such is 70s tv alas

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