Showing posts with label TV Series. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TV Series. Show all posts

Sunday, 26 April 2026

The Other Window

Wyrd Britain reviews 'The Other Window' from series 1 of 'Shadows'.
In 'The Other Window' was the final episode of the first series of the supernatural anthology series 'Shadows' scientist father John Woodvine ('Knights of God', 'Enys Men') brings home a fresnel lens to amuse his three children, Elizabeth (Gwyneth Strong), Mark (Roy Jacobs) & Jan (Sophie Ward).  After taping it to the window the children begin to see figures from the past through it, visions from their family's history that begin to take on a sinister aspect.

Written by husband and wife, J.B. Priestley ('An Inspector Calls') and Jacquetta Hawkes ('The Lonely Shore'), it's a pretty insubstantial affair slowed down by an over long explanatory section in the middle that takes valuable time that could have been better used in the finale and there's some frightfully shrill drama school performances from the children but in it's naivety it has some charm.

 ..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Sunday, 15 March 2026

The Man Who Hated Children

Wyrd Britain reviews 'The Man Who Hated Children' from the third and final series of 'Shadows' (1978).
By it's third and final series, the ITV anthology 'Shadows' was running out of both scares and steam and was delving into the realms of fantasy with stories about Merlin, magic lands and, in this instance, Peter Pan.

At it's centre and hamming it up horribly is future 'Grange Hill' caretaker George A Cooper as the curmudgeonly councillor 'Higgs', determined to bring the wrath of the law down on the heads of the two kids, 'Willie' (Paul Watson) & 'Tom' (William Smoker) who've been bedevilling him.  Recruiting fellow councillor 'Sliggs' (Brian Wilde - 'Porridge', 'Last of the Summer Wine'), he begins to enact a plan that unwittingly pits him against literature’s perpetually prepubescent prankster and brings him to a particularly odd ending.

To my mind this episode has very little to recommend it, Cooper is in full on pantomime villain mode and Wilde is still essentially playing 'Mr Barrowclough', a role he'd only left the previous year, but, right in the middle, there is one rather magical little scene that makes it all worth while but which will leave you wondering why the rest of the story couldn't have been like that.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Sunday, 25 January 2026

The Old Banger

Wyrd Britain reviews 'The Old Banger' from the LWT series 'Tales of Unease'.
Susan (Pinkie Johnstone) and John Partridge (Terence Rigby) decide to dump their clapped out old Hillman rather than pay the scandalous ten quid scrapping fee only to discover that unlike their pigeons it has an unerring and uncanny homing ability as it's repeatedly spotted making it's way ever closer back to their house. 

Wyrd Britain reviews 'The Old Banger' from the LWT series 'Tales of Unease'.
This, the fantastically daft, seventh and final episode of 'Tales of Unease', a series based around the anthologies edited by John Burke,  was the sole writing credit of actor Richardson Morgan and was directed by Quentin Lawrence who had a bit of a Wyrd Britain pedigree having worked on the likes of 'Catweazle', 'The Avengers', 'Doomwatch', 'The Strange World of Planet X' and 'Danger Man'.

Coming across like the unintended consequence of a post pub, back alley fumble between 'Christine' and 'Herbie' it's not particularly played for laughs but it isn't entirely serious either.  Worth watching, once, just to see where the car ends up, the cheeky little Minx.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Sunday, 16 November 2025

Serenade for Dead Lovers

Wyrd Britain reviews 'Serenade for Dead Lovers' from the ITV series, Worlds Beyond.
'Worlds Beyond' was an ITV series of the late 1980s that dramatised stories lifted from the archives of the Society for Psychical Research.  They made 13 episodes and truthfully none of them are particularly very good but i'm kind of addicted to them and you'll find a few eposodes on the blog.  It's an odd sort of series mostly of interest because, despite it's obviously miniscule budget, it featured some interesting casting choices, including faded Hollywood stars Eli Wallach, Karen Black and Louise Fletcher alongside the likes of Denholm Elliott, David Warner, Connie Booth, Mary Tamm & Natasha Richardson and in this case, perhaps less notably, 'Robin of Sherwood' Mk 2, Jason Connery and Nancy Travis who would later go ghost hunting again in the Stephen King mini series 'Rose Red'.

Written by legendary Wyrd Britain screenwriter Brian Clemens - who really should have done better - 'Serenade for Dead Lovers' - the best song title Bauhaus never used - revolves around an old village hall, a 40 year old romance and, for seemingly absolutely no resaon at all, a dud German bomb.  Travis and Connery do their best but there's too little here for them to really work with and what could have been a delicately poignant ghostly tale of love lost and found falls pretty flat.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Friday, 14 November 2025

The Night of the Doctor

Wyrd Britain reviews the Doctor Who webisode, 'The Night of the Doctor', starring Paul McGann.
"I'm a doctor, but probably not the one you were expecting"

On 14th November 2013 - which also happened to be Paul McGann's 54th birthday - some seventeen and half years after he woke up in a New York morgue the 8th Doctor finally appeared on TV again just in time for the shows 50th anniversary and to regenerate into The War Doctor. 

"Physician heal thyself"

Wyrd Britain reviews the Doctor Who webisode, 'The Night of the Doctor', starring Paul McGann.
Having not survived a crash from space when an attempted rescue goes awry, The Doctor is offered a chance to choose his next  regeneration by the Sisterhood of Karn, who hadn't been seen in the series since the 4th Doctor serial 'The Brain of Morbius'.  With a mind to stopping the 'Time War' between the Time Lords and the Daleks he chooses to shed the mantle of healer and instead become a warrior.

Wyrd Britain reviews the Doctor Who webisode, 'The Night of the Doctor', starring Paul McGann.
"Doctor no more."

It's always been such a shame that we got so few glimpses of McGann's Doctor - there's been a third since, where we discovered he's averse to wearing robes - but with a battery of Big Finish audios to his name and those few televised performances that show he's only got better as he's got older he remains the longest serving Doctor and the one most deserving of a revival.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Sunday, 2 November 2025

The Poacher

Wyrd Britain reviews 'The Poacher' from 'West Country Tales'.
West Country Tales was an early 80s BBC 2 series that, at least in it's first series, purportedly dramatised stories of encounters with the supernatural submitted by the public.  Episode 2, aired on February 1st 1982, 'The Poacher' tells of the unnamed titular character's meeting with the God Pan in the wood where he plies his trade.

Told primarily - as is the rest of the series - via a narrator (Douglas Leech) with minimal dialogue from the on-screen cast, the Poacher (Dave Royal) walks us through a life spent wandering the fields, woods and rivers of his locale, often, but not exclusively, under the cover of darkness,  he is shown as an independent and fair minded man atuned to the rhythms of the woods, never taking more than he needs - we witness his disgust at the wasteful pheasant shoot - and as a repository of old lore.  When he meets the Wild God (Michael Venner) it's a meeting marked with the characteristic fear that a meeting with Pan induces and presented in an appropriately oneiric manner that changes the Poacher in the most profound of ways.


..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Tuesday, 16 September 2025

UFO

Wyrd Britain reviews 'UFO'.
After spending most of the 1960s dangling their various cast members from bits of string, Gerry & Sylvia Anderson along with producer Reg Hill entered the 1970s with their first live action TV series, 'UFO'.

Over the course of one series we follow the trials and tribulations of SHADO (Supreme Headquarters Alien Defence Organisation), a covert agency under the control of Commander Edward Straker (Ed Bishop) that is the planet's primary source of defence against organ harvesting aliens.  

Wyrd Britain reviews 'UFO'.
Behind Barry Gray's killer theme tune is the Anderson's deliberate attempt to move away from the kid focussed television that they were known for by incorporating more mature topics into the episodes that often feel like a cumbersome distraction from the whole alien invasion thing but, beyond that, we get lots of fabulously retro-futurist design, typically implausible vehicles and a moonbase populated by silver suited ladies wearing purple wigs for no, easily discernable reason.

It's all a bit of a mess, albeit an occasionally entertaining one, but 'UFO' is perhaps most keenly remembered for being the catalyst - via an abandoned second series - for the Anderson's next series, 'Space 1999', oh, and for the wigs.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.


Sunday, 25 May 2025

Bad Bad Jo Jo

Roy Dotrice plays 'Kayo Hathaway', egomaniacal author of a hugely successful comic strip called 'Bad Bad Jo Jo' - about a giant, murderous white supremacist and his manipulative mother - who, on the eve of going into tax exile decides to accomodate two fans. 

We've featured several episodes from 'Tales of Unease' here before, a series that attempted to unsettle rather than terrify and in this instance it certainly succeeds.  Dotrice is fantastically vile and the two fans - Richard Pendrey & Ian Trigger - are wonderfully crazed as the episode grows ever darker and Hathaway gets what he gave.  Be warned though, you will feel sorry for the poor little dog.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.


Sunday, 20 April 2025

Poor Girl

Wyrd Britain reviews 'Poor Girl' from the short lived 1974 ITV series 'Haunted'.
Adapted from the short story by Elizabeth Taylor (the author not the actor) by Robin Chapman, who also transposed M.R. James' 'Lost Hearts' for the BBC, 'Poor Girl' is the story of Florence Chastity (Lynne Miller) hired as governess to the odd and precocious Hilary Wilson (Matthew Pollock) who finds herself beset by visions of lipstick marks, necklaces and a young couple in incongruous clothing whilst trapped in an unloving and strange haunted manor house.

Wyrd Britain reviews 'Poor Girl' from the short lived 1974 ITV series 'Haunted'.
The second and final episode of ITVs 'Haunted' thread, following 'The Ferryman' starring Jeremy Brett, was shown on December 30th 1974 and unlike Brett's episode opts for a period - late Victorian / early Edwardian - setting in keeping with the ghostly tradition of the BBC's more established annual spooky Christmas fare that it was shown in oppostion to.

There are distinct shades of Henry James' 'Turn of the Screw' / 'The Innocents' here as the reserve and the resolve of the adults begins to crumble and the libidinous pull starts to take hold but Taylor's story has an altogether different aim as the spectres of two different types of masculinity fight for dominance within the house, of the vainglorious, lascivious father or of the gentler, loving son and the man he'll grow to be.  It's all a little slow and tentative but with a strong performance by Pollock as the odd and old beyond his years child and it's slowly unfolding narrative it makes for a gently satisfying watch.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Sunday, 30 March 2025

The Corpse Can’t Play

Wyrd Britain reviews 'The Corpse Can’t Play' from the lost BBC TV Series, 'Late Night Horror'.
The 1968 BBC series 'Late Night Horror', was the first horror show made in colour on the channel and featured stories by such luminaries as Robert Aickman (an adaptation of 'Ringing the Changes'), Arthur Conan Doyle, Richard Mattheson, Roald Dahl, H Russell Wakefield and John Burke.  Lasting only six episodes before being cancelled due to complaints and subsequently wiped, only the Burke episode remains in the form of a black and white telerecording (subsequently re-released in a colourised version)

In 'The Corpse Can't Play' the thoroughly unpleasant Ronnie (Frank Berry) is ruling the roost at his birthday party when another boy, the unpopular, but impeccably dressed, Simon (Michael Newport), arrives unannounced and immediately becomes the target of Ronnie's spite whilst, hovering in the background, are three entirely ineffectual adults, one of whom has just brought home several new gardening tools, including an axe.

Featuring some solid performances from the two main kids it's a quick and effective little shocker ably directed by Paddy Russell, one of the first female directors employed by the BBC, who had an almost peerless Wyrd Britain pedigree having worked on the 'Quatermass' TV serials before directing episodes of 'Doctor Who' - including 'Pyramids of Mars' and 'Horror of Fang Rock' - as well as 'Out of the Unknown' and 'The Omega Factor'.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Wednesday, 19 March 2025

Don’t Knock Yourself Out: The Making of the Prisoner

Wyrd Britain reviews 'Don’t Knock Yourself Out: The Making of the Prisoner'.
From 29 September 1967 to 1 February 1968 ITV bewildered their audience with 17 episodes of Kafkaesque sci-fi brilliance in the form of 'The Prisoner'.  Created by actor Patrick McGoohan following his exit from the successful spy drama 'Danger Man', that he'd starred in for four series, 'The Prisoner' is the story of a former spy, known only, much to his chagrin, as 'Number Six' who, following his resignation, is drugged and imprisoned in 'The Village', a surreal, seaside holiday camp from which he cannot escape and where he's subjected to repeated psychedelic, surgical and psychological manipulation in the pursuit of information.

Made by the folks at Century 21 Films with not a marionette - super or otherwise - in sight it offers a comprehensive and fascinating, if slightly dry, overview of the making of this most enigmatic of TV shows featuring contributions, both archive and new, from the likes of Peter Wyngarde, Fennella Fielding, Darren Nesbitt, Leo McKern and, of course, McGoohan alongside various members of the production team including ITC head Lew Grade, producer David Tomblin, script editor (and possible series co-creator) George Markstein and writers Vincent Tilsley and Roger Parkes.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Sunday, 9 March 2025

The Black Goddess

Wyrd Britain reviews 'The Black Goddess' from 'Tales of Unease'.
One of only two stories - the other being 'Superstitious Ignorance' - featured in both the book, 'Tales of Unease', and subsequent TV series, Jack Griffiths' tale is the story of a group of Welsh miners trapped deep underground after a pit collapse, one of whom has been having premonitions of disaster and visions of the dark spirit of the mine.

Featuring Ronald Lewis, David Lloyd Meredith and Talfryn Thomas (who would later play the loathsome Tom Price in 'Survivors') it tells a gentle story about a brutal topic which retains the original's deliciously ambiguous core.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Sunday, 2 March 2025

The Ferryman

Wyrd Britain reviews 'The Ferryman' Starring Jeremy Brett.
ITV's extremely short lived 'Haunted' thread seem to have been an attempt to create their own 'A Ghost Story for Christmas' and this, the first of the two films they aired under that banner heading, screened the same day as the BBC's 'The Treasure of Abbot Thomas', the 23rd December 1974.

Based on a story by Kingsley Amis it stars Jeremy Brett as Sheridan Owen, the pompous and overbearing author of a hit "literary horror" novel, who, escaping with his wife Alex (Natasha Parry) from his promotional duties, finds himself seemingly trapped in the plot of his own novel.

Wyrd Britain reviews 'The Ferryman' Starring Jeremy Brett.
The last time we met Brett on Wyrd Britain was with his dreadful scenery chewing performance in 'Mr Nightingale' but thankfully  he's notably more restrained here and reminds of the actor he was to become in his most famous role.  Parry, unfortunately has little to do but leads a strong supporting cast.  Director John Irvin, who four years later would direct Alec Guinness in the superb 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy', shows a keen sense of pacing and a good eye for a gothic visual, despite everything being obviously shot in the daytime, and the story builds to a solid climax with a darkly cryptic coda. 

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Sunday, 23 February 2025

The Death Watcher

Wyrd Britain reviews 'The Death Watcher' from the ITV series 'Shadows Of Fear'.
Shadows Of Fear was an early 70s anthology series of ten hour long thrillers and one thirty minute one revolving around notions of 'fear'.  Strangely for the time it was made and with such an apt core concept and such a supremely creepy animated opening sequence featuring Roger Webb's terrifying theme music only one of the eleven episodes had a supernatural theme, episode four, 'The Death Watcher'

Wyrd Britain reviews 'The Death Watcher' from the ITV series 'Shadows Of Fear'.
Psychologist, Emily Erikson (Judy Parfitt), riding high on the publication of her book, accepts the invitation of a Dr Pickering (John Neville) to visit with him to observe his experiments. There she discovers his work is far further out there than she anticipated and finds herself held hostage by the deranged Doctor and his unwitting assistant Dawson (Victor Maddern) and destined to be not just an observer but his subject. 

Screened on January 26th 1971 there are shades of Nigel Kneale in the melding of science and the supernatural but Pickering always feels more bonkers than brilliant with his botched together death trap and half baked theories, reminiscing about ballroom dancing as he becomes increasingly deranged, leading to a chilling denouement. 

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.


Sunday, 12 January 2025

Superstitious Ignorance

Wyrd Britain reviews 'Superstitious Ignorance' from 'Tales of Unease'.
The ITV (LWT) series 'Tales of Unease' ran for one series in 1970 taking it's stories from the books of the same name edited by John Burke.  Only seven episodes were made, the first two of which - 'Ride, Ride' & 'Calculated Nightmare' - we've featured here before, this, the fifth episode, continues the series' remit of tales that unsettle but don't necessarily horrify.

Yellow beach buggy owning hipster couple 'Teddy' (Jeremy Clyde - 'Schalcken the Painter') and 'Penny' (Tessa Wyatt - 'Robin's Nest') visit a dilapidated house with vague plans to buy and renovate it but encounter the sitting tenant, 'Mrs Laristo' (Eve Pearce) who warns them not to stay.

Wyrd Britain reviews 'Superstitious Ignorance' from 'Tales of Unease'.
Following it's sitcom like beginning there's a well-paced build up of tension as the pompous pair run roughshod over the increasingly panicked tenant and parade around the house planning their remodelling.  Is there something evil in the house or is Mrs Laristo simply trying to scare them away from her home or, is it something, else?

For the most part it's a quick and effective little creeeper but unfortunately the pay-off, whilst unexpected, is rather silly and much of the hard work of the previous 30 minutes comes crashing down.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Sunday, 5 January 2025

Dirk Gently

Wyrd Britain reviews the BBC4 adaptation of Douglas Adams' 'Dirk Gently' starring Stephen Mangan and Darren Boyd.
With their genesis in a, then, abandoned Tom Baker era, Doctor Who script - 'Shada' whose filming was stopped due to a production strike although it has since been novelised and adapted for audio - Douglas Adams wrote two and a bit Dirk Gently books that have since been spun off into two TV series, as 'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency' for BBC America in 2016 with Samuel Barnett and Elijah Wood, but before that, between 2010 and 2012, as 'Dirk Gently' for BBC4.

Adapted by 'Misfits' creator Howard Overman, with later scripts by Doctor Who alumni Matt Jones and Jamie Mathieson and starring Stephen Mangan as Dirk, Darren Boyd as Richard MacDuff, Helen Baxendale as Richard's exasperated girlfriend Susan Harrison, Jason Watkins as D.I. Gilks and Lisa Jackson as Dirk's perpetually unpaid secretary Janice.

Wyrd Britain reviews the BBC4 adaptation of Douglas Adams' 'Dirk Gently' starring Stephen Mangan and Darren Boyd.
The original pilot episode aired in December 2010 and is the one, of the 4 episodes made, which most closely relates to the first novel with it's tale of time travel but the others, shown in 2012, all maintain the science fiction elements that perfectly suit a detective whose investigative style is based on quantum physics and the fundamental interconnectedness of all things.  The now ubiquitous Mangan, who was then mostly known for his starring role in the hospital based sitcom 'Green Wing', brings the perfect amount of manic untrustworthiness and crazed genius to the role whilst Boyd is the consumate everyman foil as Dirk's "averagely incompetent assistant" / partner. 

Wyrd Britain reviews the BBC4 adaptation of Douglas Adams' 'Dirk Gently' starring Stephen Mangan and Darren Boyd.

Whilst there is a slightly cheap and cheerful aspect to the show, particularly when viewed against 'Sherlock', that was airing to global acclaim around the same time, it's charm is it's own and, had it been given the chance, feels like it could have grown into something lasting but, unfortunately the show was cancelled following it's sole series with the BBC blaming a funding freeze and a decision to consolidate it's original drama production to it's two principal channels.

..........................................................................................


If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Wednesday, 11 December 2024

Clangers

Wyrd Britain celebrates the 'Clangers' by Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate.
'Clangers' was a stop-motion puppet animation created in 1969 by (modelmaker and illustrator) Peter Firmin and (writer, animator and narrator) Oliver Postgate's who, through their company, Smallfilms, had previously produced animated shows such as Ivor the Engine, Noggin the Nog (in which a Clanger-like 'Moonmouse' had featured 2 years previously) and Pogle's Wood and who would go on to produce Bagpuss. The Clangers are a small family of pink mouse-like creatures - named Granny, Major, Mother, Tiny and Small Clanger - who live on a small, moon-like planet along with The Soup Dragon (and her baby), The Froglets, The Iron Chicken, The Cloud and The Music Trees.

Wyrd Britain celebrates the 'Clangers' by Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate.Wyrd Britain celebrates the 'Clangers' by Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate.
The Clangers spoke in a musical whistle created by using a slide (or swanee) whistle. Their dialogue however was all scripted and then reproduced through the instruments. This allowed Postgate to be rather more adventurous with the dialogue than the BBC would have maybe liked (if they'd known) with Episode Three, 'Chicken', containing - at 00:55 - the most famous piece of salty Clanger speak, "Oh sod it, the bloody thing's stuck again."

Only 27 episodes (two series and one special) of The Clangers were made but to this day they hold - as does much of Postgate and Firmin's work - a special place in hearts of swathes of Brits who grew up in the 70s and 80s, but their simple charm has rendered them timeless with the revived series (2015-2020) producing a further 106 episodes narrated by Michael Palin (in the UK) and William Shatner (in the US).

..........................................................................................
If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Sunday, 10 November 2024

Black Carrion

Wyrd Britain reviews 'Black Carrion' from Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense.
Right, before we start, let me just say upfront this show is bad, really bad, and not in a so bad it's good kind of way but in a so bad it's bloody awful kind of way.  It is, in so many ways, terrible; irredeemably, eyewateringly terrible. But I like it even though it is, and I can't stress this enough, crap!

'Black Carrion' was the eighth episode of Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense, the venerable company's second TV series made in conjunction with 20th Century Fox Television whose input allowed for longer run times, some 'name' actors and access to the US TV market.

Telling the story of the search for the 'Verne Brothers' (Alan Love and Julian Littman) a long disappeared early 60s pop duo whose contribution to music seems to have been doing covers of Chuck Berry and Johnny Kidd and the Pirates songs with horrible 80s saxophone parping over the top whilst wearing, for no particular reason, white leather jackets with a bird motif on the back.

Wyrd Britain reviews 'Black Carrion' from Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense.
Written by Don Houghton (Sapphire and Steel, Ace of Wands) there's much spooky promise here with a fun premise and some nice sets but he just doesn't seem to know what to do with it and squanders every opportunity.  The script suffers from more flashbacks than Jerry Garcia, meanders aimessly for much of the time, features teenage hoodlums who aren't, investigating reporters who don't and a grand finale that isn't.  

The first time I watched this, I almost shouted at the TV in disbelief at how idiotic the ending is, but over the years, I've come to kind of love it for all it's very, very, many faults.


Sunday, 27 October 2024

The Eye Of Yemanja

Wyrd Britain reviews 'The Eye Of Yemanja' from the ITV series 'Worlds Beyond'
Late(ish) 1980s ITV series 'Worlds Beyond' featured 13 'true' stories from the archives of the Society for Psychical Research.  We've featured a few of these on Wyrd Britain before and, to be entirely honest, they're a pretty ropey bunch.

In this episode, written by the usuably reliable Brian Clemens (Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter, Someone At The Top Of The Stairs), model Suzy (Amanda Hillwood), who has apparently never read or watched any horror, takes home an ominous carving she finds washed up on the beach.  Repeatedly discounting a warning of the statue's evil intent she is soon beset by accident and injury.

Wyrd Britain reviews 'The Eye Of Yemanja' from the ITV series 'Worlds Beyond'
It's all been knocked together quickly and cheaply so it's all pretty rudimentary with very little jeopardy and some brutally terrible editing but there're a few nice touches that could have been developed into something interesting and it has a naive, cheap and cheerful charm.

NB - Eagle-eyed viewers may wish to watch out for a brief appearence by Julia Deakin (Spaced).

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Monday, 5 August 2024

Parallel Worlds: A User's Guide

Wyrd Britain reviews 'Parallel Worlds: A User's Guide'.
Taken from the BBC Four Timeshift documentary series and narrated by Richard Ayoade with contributions from, the perhaps inevitable, Stuart Maconie, author Kim Newman, critic Roz Kaveney and various others this is a playful look at the phenomenon of the parallel world.  
 
Originally screened in 2007 it is somewhat dated by many of it's reference points with the likes of 'Sliders'  - which even at that point was 7 years forgotten by most folks - getting far more mentions than necesssary, as well as 'Buffy', 'Red Dwarf' and 'Futurama'.  It's essentialy a piece of fluff but some interesting points are made and in our current MCU dominated world it's interesting to see how many of the identified tropes have proven to be so resilient.



..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.