Today, via DVD, I returned to the1975 TV series;
Shadows, to view the remainder of the season one episodes.
- Ep 4 The Waiting Room by Jon Watkins (24/9/1975)
- Ep 5 An optical Illusion by Thom Clarke (1/10/1975)
- Ep 6 Dutch Schlitz's Shoes by Trevor Preston (8/10/1975
- Ep 7 The Other Window by Jacquetta Hawkes, J. B. Priestley (15/10/1975)
And what a mixed bag it was. Interestingly while I didn't have any recall of ever having watched any of the first three episodes on the set, I'm fairly certain, with my memory now jogged, that I saw at least two of the above episodes on original transmission.
The Waiting Room is the first one that feels familiar and not just because of the plot, although it is a bit of a classic set up for a ghost story. The haunted waiting room of the old railway station at night, the anniversary of a disaster, history playing its self out again and trying to pull the modern back into the past. Its all good stuff and done very well. Its also got Jenny Agutter in it who delivers her performance with such conviction that she almost seems to elevate the whole thing above its simple premise
Watching again it reminded me now of the second
Sapphire and Steel story shown in 1979 and also the film;
The Ghost Train originally released 1941 but viewed by me on some rainy Saturday afternoon also in the late 70's on TV
An optical Illusion is also a fairly straightforward ghost story set up but with some quite "light" acting and a very slow plot build which fails to add any suspense and makes it all feel like a bit of a fail after the previous story. Maybe with 7 days between them on original broadcast, the comparison wouldn't have been a problem but its hard to escape on a DVD box set. It does feature Richard Willis who is one of those familiar and reliable TV faces from back in the day who I always liked.
Dutch Schlitz's Shoes is something of an oddity being a sort of spin off of
Ace of Wands starring as it does Russell Hunter as the villainous Mr Stabs. Less ghost story and more supernatural farce. I had already watched this last year as a bonus feature on the
Ace of Wands DVD and a second viewing so soon wasn't the easiest to sit through although you have to love Hunter chewing up the scenery almost as wonderfully as he did in the 1977
Doctor Who story
The Robots of Death.
The Other Window was perhaps the most disappointing with the only real pleasure to be had from the fact that I remembered the weird lens around which the plot barely hangs and unearthed some hitherto lost memory of having sat through it before in 1975. The idea is actually quite a good one but the script is full of awful theorising and lecturing of beliefs that doesn't seem remotely realistic of any character. Given that one half of the writing partnership was J. B. Priestley, who's enigmatic works inspired P J Hammond to create
Sapphire and Steel, I dared to hope for better.
Out of the seven episodes there are two absolute keepers and a few others that are entertaining
enough that I could imagine sitting through them again. Volume 2 awaits but not for a while I think.
As a concept for kids TV, the anthology supernatural series seems to be a thing of the past which is a shame really and not because the kids wouldn't be interested nowadays but because I doubt any of the TV stations would have the balls to go for it.
Steve
