Production order: 02 | ITC code: 5110 | Airdate order: 04 | DVD order: 04
Those Responsible
Writer: Donald James
Director: Roy Ward Baker
Where & When
Hambledown, Hampshire, England: April 16th
The Inexplicable Mystery
It's an ordinary evening in the village of Hambledown. A young woman, Susan, is competing in a beauty contest the following day, so to make sure she's well rested she takes a sleeping pill. But she's woken in the middle of the night by light and noise from outside. Still half-asleep, she looks out of the window to see the village's population being rounded up by hazmat-suited figures. She then passes out again, waking in the morning to find Hambledown completely deserted...
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| "Right! It's the anal probe for you lot." |
The Mystery Explained
Local resident Colonel Loring has a grandiose plan to end war, by creating a completely lethal, yet short-lived, virus that can be unleashed upon any nation that threatens world peace. When a sample of the virus was spilled in a minor car accident, he had the villagers rounded up and brought to the research facility hidden beneath his house so they could be given the cure. However, he is being taken for a very expensive ride by his co-conspirators Brogan and Yates: the virus is nothing more than the common cold and the 'cure' merely water.
Review
This was only the second episode of Department S filmed (the first being 'The Man In The Elegant Room', which would end up the sixth broadcast), but in many ways it's a defining story, both for the characters and the show itself. The mystery of a deserted, Marie Celeste-style village is an excellent hook, and its ultimate answer is both entertaining and a clever twist on what by 1969 had become a much overplayed cliche of spy-fi shows like The Avengers. Colonel Loring is a loon with a plan for world domination, like so many opponents of John Steed and Emma Peel or Tara King - he even has a secret underground base! But it's as if he's spent too much time watching those stories himself, making him a prime mark for Brogan and Yates, who stoke up his deluded fantasies and play him for every penny he's got.
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| After a few whiskies, Jason would never know the difference. |
Donald James's script also sets up the leading trio to their best advantage. The relationships between Jason, Stewart and Annabelle are subtly but clearly defined: Annabelle is worried and afraid for Stewart when he's taken by the bad guys, but exasperated with Jason for not only failing to stop them but getting hurt in the process, while Jason patronises her both here in return for what he obviously considers her feminine hysteria, and earlier when he dismisses her deductive reasoning (which turns out to be right on the mark, so Jason's just being a dick to her, as usual). Stewart, meanwhile, tellingly corrects himself in vino veritas after describing Jason as a "friend" to merely calling him a "colleague"; his early conversation with Seretse suggests that the author's presence on the team is a fairly recent development, and that he's still ambivalent about it.
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| Too late, she realised Loring had used the stick to get his dog's poo off the lawn. |
Seretse himself has little to do here, begging the question of why he appears at all. An answer comes in the documentary included on the Department S DVD boxset, which reveals that a few episodes had already been shot before Dennis Alaba Peters was added to the regular cast and Department S suddenly gained a boss. Since Sir Curtis appears in every story as broadcast, presumably additional scenes were filmed so that he could be edited into the existing episodes, of which this would have been one. Seretse appears only in a single scene here, giving Stewart a very short mission briefing and a little back story on Jason, and has no direct impact on anything else that happens. (We'll discuss Seretse's early appearances when we get to 'Elegant Room'.)
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| Special precautions were needed before entering Jason's aftershave storeroom. |
If 'Hambledown' has a fault, it's that the episode is a bit ambling and parochial, the sleepy English village setting at odds with the glossy and action-packed globetrottathon the show's creators wanted to push. It's probably the closest Department S came to aping the show its creators doubtless took as inspiration, The Avengers. But overall it's one of the series's best stories, perfectly balancing the detective work with character moments and humour. Everyone gets snappy dialogue throughout, but there's also non-verbal comedy to be had, such as a cute (and nicely underplayed) moment when Jason goes to a great deal of effort to break into Loring's house, only to find, to Annabelle's amusement, that the door was unlocked the whole time.
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| "It's happy hour somewhere in the world." |
The episode is also the apogee of Peter Wyngarde's initial idea (quickly shot down by the directors and crew) that Jason should have a drink in hand at all times, no matter the situation. Jason starts helping himself to the Duke of Cumberland's stock as soon as he arrives at the pub in the morning, and that night when the bad guys sneak inside, the author has not only polished off even more booze during the stakeout, but finds the time to fill a fresh glass after they've gone past him to kill Stewart!
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| Or "Gates Elizabeth", as he signs his name. |
An interesting bit of trivia is that we get a look at Stewart's Interpol ID card in this story. The show's makers obviously had no inkling that anyone would be freeze-framing it on DVD over four decades later, or they might have put a bit more thought into it. The lanky Stewart is listed as only five feet six inches tall, yet weighs a rather chunky 150 pounds!
Fancy Quotes
Jason: Whenever I feel the urge to exercise, I lie down until it passes.
Stewart: Sounds like one of Mr Caine's lines.
Jason: It will be, Oscar, it will be.
Annabelle: Jason, I've never known anyone like you in my life. How could you go and get yourself knocked out again?
Jason: At the time, it seemed to happen quite naturally.
[Stewart is forced at gunpoint to drink a bottle of brandy so that the villains can dispose of him, a la North By Northwest]
Stewart: Aw, no. Not the car ride bit?
Yates: Don't bother with questions!
Stewart: You know, I have a friend - er, a colleague. He'd be very upset, it shows no imagination at all.
Cheers!
• "Oh, good morning!" says Jason to Annabelle - as he pours himself a glass of red wine from the Duke of Cumberland's stock.
• Barely a minute later, he pours another (full) glass! Stewart seems to be more than happy to join him in drinking while on duty. Right afterwards, Jason takes off in his Bentley to check the village's outlying houses. Drink-driving clearly wasn't a big deal in the 1960s...
• Jason has another glass of wine beside him as he and Stewart mull over the case in the evening.
• Our hero helps himself to a large glass of whisky while staking out the pub. Judging from his glassy-eyed and slightly wobbly state, it seems unlikely to be the first! However, he doesn't get to finish it as he uses it to extinguish his cigarette when the bad guys turn up.
• But he then immediately pours himself another glass to replace it!
• Jason wraps up the case with yet another glass of vintage wine.
Fight!
Jason and Stewart take on Brogan and Yates at the pub. The American makes a good showing until being caught at gunpoint, but Jason gets only a black eye for his troubles, as well as falling down a flight of stairs (probably thanks to having drained half the pub's supply of alcohol over the course of the evening). He then gets clubbed over the head by Loring and knocked out. KO!
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| Jason 3, Stewart 0. |
Stewart tricks Yates into getting too close, and promptly beats the crap out of him. With some glee.
Author! Author!
Dead Dames Don't. "Don't what?" Stewart asks, quite reasonably.
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| The sequel Middle Finger Right Hand didn't sell as well. |
Susan's father is reading Index Finger Left Hand. Jason tells him it has a marvellous twist at the end. (Seretse also reads the same story earlier.)
This Looks Familiar
It may be lurking in the corner of the screen, but the corridor - here passing itself as a hospital office - can't hide!
It returns later as another hospital, Colonel Loring's underground lair (you can tell it's an evil hospital by the angular archways).
