Production order: 15 | ITC code: 5111 | Airdate order: 16 | DVD order: 03
Those Responsible
Writer: Tony Williamson
Director: Gil Taylor
Where & When
London, England, February 2nd
The Inexplicable Mystery
A young couple are canoodling in a Soho alleyway when a man wearing a spacesuit staggers towards them - then keels over dead!
The Mystery Explained
The spacesuit is needed for an ingenious robbery. The only way to reach a vault full of precious stones without tripping the building's security is by breaking through the wall of the adjoining business - a frozen food factory that uses a vacuum chamber to sterilise, preserve and deep-freeze its produce. The dead man, Jimmy Rankin, was a safecracker with rare expertise in the type of lock used in the vault; the team of criminals (backed by the boss of an aerospace company with access to spacesuits) was practising the raid when his suit ran out of air and he panicked, getting separated from the others.
Review
'The Man From X' - the title playing off a rare joke by Sir Curtis, who suggests that the dead spaceman, having recently been exposed to vacuum, sub-zero temperatures and radiation, came from "Planet X" - is, like the previous episode, a case of a relatively straightforward crime being carried out in an unusual way. Unlike 'The Trojan Tanker', though, this story plays out its outrageous premise without too many forced leaps of logic. It also strings out the audience's curiosity for as long as possible, not answering the question of how and why a dead man would be found in a spacesuit in the middle of London until about ten minutes from the end... by which time an undercover Jason is trapped with the villains and in mortal danger if he is found out.
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| Not least from the Fashion Police. |
As long as you're willing to suspend your disbelief that A: a super-secure vault would directly back onto a meat-packing factory, and B: said factory would use a massive room as a vacuum chamber rather than the much smaller machines employed in reality - admittedly, Department S will ask it to be suspended way, way higher - then this is a fun, clever and constantly twisting tale that gives all three main characters a share of the detective work. Stewart tracks down the spacesuit, ending up in hospital for his trouble after a particularly original assassination attempt, while Annabelle uses her computer skills to identify any possible location in London where a spacesuit might be needed, leading her and Stewart to the frozen food factory.
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| Stewart had also seen Jason's outfit. |
Meanwhile, Peter Wyngarde gets a lot more scenery to chew than in the first two stories, as Jason dons his best lounge lizard clobber - it appears literally to have scales - and gets down with the kids at a groovy nightspot while searching for Rankin's sister Leila (with a great comedy moment where he puffs on Leila's probably 'special' cigarette only to grimace and hurriedly return it). Later he adopts a silly hat and a not entirely convincing American accent as he takes the place of the New York safecracker flown in as her brother's replacement.
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| A most groovy fella, maaaaan. |
The leading trio also get plenty of snappy dialogue, as well as hints of flirtation between Annabelle and Stewart - and Jason's utter horror at the suggestion that there might be anything going on between him and Annabelle! Jason also manages to charm the "way out" Leila, despite Annabelle's gleeful interference. It's the first time in the series that we properly get to see our heroes interacting and playing off each other as friends, and while Jason's relationship with Annabelle is tinged with disdain for what he sees as her overly analytical and logical approach to solving crimes, he still improvises a way to save her life when she's caught by the villains.
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| YouTube cat videos had to be printed out as flickbooks in 1969. |
Overall, it's the show's first solid success, combining an intriguing mystery that has a satisfying solution with plenty of good character interplay. As we'll discover, Department S unfortunately couldn't maintain this level of quality throughout its run - but that doesn't mean there aren't still plenty of good episodes to come.
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| "Just filling the alcohol tanks - oxygen tanks. I meant oxygen tanks." |
An odd, funny moment for car buffs is where the goon sabotaging Stewart's Chevrolet Corsair goes to its rear and opens the 'boot' to plant the liquid oxygen canister - only to find the engine inside, forcing him to walk to the front and try again. (However, the show will forget that the Corsair is rear-engined in 'Who Plays The Dummy?'...)
Fancy Quotes
[Annabelle tells Jason about Stewart's car being booby-trapped with liquid oxygen to make him intoxicated]
Jason: Sounds like a good way to stop Mark Caine, I must remember that.
[At Stewart's apartment, Leila reads the title of one of Jason's novels]
Leila: 'The Lady Is Willing.'
Jason: [smirking] Really?
Leila: There'd better be a lock on my door.
[Jason is about to take Leila to bed when Annabelle arrives]
Annabelle: I thought you were going to telephone the hospital?
Jason: [annoyed] How very nice of you to come round here and remind me!
Annabelle: Am I intruding?
Jason: Yes!
Annabelle: What a pity.
Leila: Your wife?
Jason: Perish the thought!
Jason: If you can't sleep, there's a collection of my novels beside the bedside table.
Jason: Now, let me do the talking for a change.
Stewart: [to Annabelle] Could we stop him?
Cheers!
• Jason makes Leila a coffee to help her calm down after being attacked. He fortifies his own with a large slug of whisky.
• While holed up with the robbers, our man obviously needs a way to pass the time. He does it by drinking more whisky.
• Having cracked the case, Jason celebrates - while still wearing his spacesuit - with a very large glass of whisky. (He has at least removed the helmet!)
Fight!
Jason punches out two thugs who try to silence Leila. Remarkably, he doesn't get knocked out in return.
The bad guys force Annabelle's car off the road and drag her out, then a goon backhands her across the face. Boo!
Having staked out the vacuum chamber, a spacesuited Stewart spars with one of the raiders (in a lovely touch, the scrap plays out in a scientifically accurate way with no sound), before he and Jason take down the others with the aid of a - frozen and irradiated - side of beef.
Author! Author!
The Lady Is Willing. Jason has probably been waiting for a sexy woman to read out the title to him ever since he wrote it.
That Looks Familiar
The corridor takes a transatlantic trip to act as a hallway in the United Nations building in New York.
Later, it hops back to England to become part of the hospital in which Stewart recovers after his car crash.
The scenery docks are used here as the exterior of the frozen food factory.
The oxygen-drunken Stewart swerves to avoid an oncoming car - the debut appearance for the Vauxhall Victor that had its paperwork done at the DVLC right before Stewart's usual Vauxhall Ventora.
