Production order: 05 | ITC code: 5117 | Airdate order: 07 | DVD order: 07
Those Responsible
Writer: Philip Broadley
Director: John Gilling
Where & When
Colindale Golf Course, Scotland: June 6th
The Inexplicable Mystery
A golf tournament finds itself short of one of its players, Johnny Collins. He turns up, club in his hand, on a nearby beach... dead.
The Mystery Explained
Casino owner Kruger organised a gold bullion robbery in Switzerland. Collins and his friend Eddie Curtis, both professional golfers, smuggled the gold across Europe after it was melted down and cast into the shape of golf clubs. When Collins got greedy and demanded more money, Kruger had him killed, along with anyone else who could have exposed the operation.
Review
'Handicap Dead' is a perfectly adequate cop show episode. A man is murdered, and through dogged investigation of his activities, friends and associates, the identity and motive of the killer is eventually discovered so they can be brought to justice.
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| "They pulled this out of your what?" |
The problem is, Department S isn't - or shouldn't have been - a regular cop show. The very premise is that the crimes it investigates are so bizarre and inexplicable that they are beyond the abilities of the ordinary police to solve, requiring the brightest minds of Interpol (and an egotistical fiction writer) - but in this case, any old plod could have followed the trail of clues to its conclusion.
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| STWT. |
There isn't even a legitimate reason for it to be a case for Department S. Stewart happens to be at the golf tournament and takes it upon himself to investigate, drawing Annabelle and Jason in with him. Seretse even challenges him on this, pointing out that the Department already has its assigned cases and limited resources with which to handle them, but ultimately lets him do what he wants because otherwise the rest of the episode would be nothing more than Jason and Stewart sitting in a hotel room building increasingly grandiose houses of cards. Moreover, the initial mystery of how Collins was killed ends up being completely ignored and forgotten; for all we know, Kruger's two goons really did use a flare gun that fired golf balls, as featured in one of Jason's novels!
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| The late Sixties were not a good time for wallpaper... |
The episode also has a lot of filler. The teaser shows an interminable amount of golf, Parisian stock footage is used in abundance after the opening credits, and almost a full minute is spent on clips from a Le Mans 24-hour race in which Jason is participating (at least until his car breaks down on the starting line). Mr King also makes a parachute jump for no especially justifiable reason, and if you're turned on by shots of spinning roulette wheels and casino chips, this is the story for you. It's not hard to imagine that this was originally a 30-minute story idea Philip Broadley had devised for Danger Man which was painfully stre-e-e-etched to fit Department S's longer format.
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| ...or menacing hairstyles, for that matter. |
There are a few redeeming moments, coming from characters rather than plot. Stewart and Annabelle have an amusing conversation that is flat-out flirtatious when he lets himself into her Paris apartment (she having given him a key) and finds her in the bath. He later even calls her "Darling" as they practice putting - no, that's not a euphemism – in his hotel room, so if there are any Department S 'shippers out there, this is a major episode for you. On the villains' side, Kruger's two thugs Sonny and Red are among the show's few genuinely memorable bad guys. Partly because they're played by actors in the Before They Were Famous stage of their careers - towering Norman Eshley was a regular in Seventies sitcom George & Mildred, while big-haired Dudley Sutton appeared in almost every episode of Lovejoy as the eponymous character's alcoholic buddy Tinker - and partly because they're so gleefully nasty about their murderous business, taking positive pleasure in killing anyone who has displeased their boss.
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| "Why are you so keen to see me jump, Annab- Did you just hide a pair of scissors?" |
Behind the scenes, Jason's aforementioned parachute jump was performed on the sly, against orders from the studio (it violated the terms of their insurance), by Peter Wyngarde himself. Just as Jason wanted to find out for himself how his fictional creation would respond in a dangerous situation, so Wyngarde applied the same logic to his own character. It ultimately didn't make much difference to the show, as the way the sequence is edited makes it all but impossible to tell that it's the actor in free fall, but Wyngarde probably enjoyed it. Ironically, he survived that experience with no trouble, but a much smaller stunt - leaping down a flight of stairs to tackle Kruger and Red at the climax - ended up causing him a permanent back injury!
Fancy Quotes
[A bathing Annabelle finds she has an unexpected houseguest]
Annabelle: I gave you that key for emergencies, Stewart.
Stewart: This is an emergency!
Annabelle: What is it?
Stewart: I'm dying... for a cup of coffee.
Stewart: How's Jason?
Annabelle: Infuriating, as usual.
[Annabelle offers Jason a gun as he goes back into the casino in search of Stewart, but he turns it down]
Jason: It'd ruin my pockets.
[Unintentional (and ironic) double-entendre of the week]
Stewart: Where were you?
Jason: Ensconced in the closet.
Cheers!
• Jason, in his dressing gown, has a glass of whisky as he and Stewart discuss the case at the author's apartment.
• He turns up at Stewart's hotel room bearing 'breakfast', which has a surprisingly high alcohol content.
• At the casino, he turns down a glass of (probably inferior) champagne to order a whisky instead.
• After beating the bad guys in the casino's wine cellar, he says that he needs a drink, but turns down the bottle Stewart proffers, saying he needs something stronger. This being Jason, he probably finds it.
• Finally, he cracks open his last (until he gets more delivered, no doubt) bottle of champagne to celebrate the solving of the case with his detective comrades.
Fight!
Stewart gets knocked out with one punch by Sonny, who's hiding behind the door of Eddie Curtis's flat. KO!
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| Jason 4, Stewart 2. |
Even drugged, Stewart is still able to get free of his restraints in the casino cellar and treat Sonny to a well-deserved beating.
Jason makes a flying leap down the cellar stairs to tackle Kruger and Red, then he and Stewart engage in a brawl with the villainous trio, easily defeating them. "I'm sure I've done something terrible to myself," he ironically remarks afterwards.
Author! Author!
From China Yours Sincerely is the source of Jason's golf-ball gun idea.
Jason tells Stewart that the novel he is currently writing is titled Don’t Look Now But Your Clutch Is Slipping.
This Looks Familiar
Stewart's London hotel room has a familiar occupant (besides the man in the brown suit), namely the now-familiar Department S corridor.
The Aces High casino in London looks remarkably similar to the one on the Cote d'Azure from 'The Trojan Tanker'!
You'll be seeing a lot more of this red Lotus Elan belonging to Dianne Lynne in later episodes...
