Production order: 10 | ITC code: 5104 | Airdate order: 15 | DVD order: 14
Those Responsible
Writer: Donald James
Director: John Gilling
Where & When
Stepney, London, England: October 10th
The Inexplicable Mystery
The staff of the Bellman-Parsons chemical factory come in to work, only to discover that every single employee was absent the previous day. The only person not accounted for is the new secretary, Miss Royce. Police interviews of people living nearby reveal that despite its entire workforce being off sick, the plant was staffed and fully operational all day...
The Mystery Explained
Miss Royce (real name, Kate Mortimer) tampered with the company's tea urn, giving everyone a mild dose of arsenic poisoning. They all called in sick the next day - except for one dedicated man, who was murdered for his trouble. The plant was then used to manufacture large quantities of acid, the criminals intending to use it to dissolve the precious metals in the reactor core of an unfinished nuclear power station managed by Kate's unwitting fiance, then smuggle them out of the country in a tanker before extracting and selling them.
Review
'The Shift That Never Was' has an intriguing mystery, good scenes for Annabelle and Jason, and a clever solution - no pun intended - to the puzzle of why someone would want to take over a chemical factory. Yet it doesn't quite work as a whole.
 |
| It's not really miming if you're actually in a phone box. |
The reason is largely because it doesn't feel plausible that the criminals responsible would even know that half a million pounds-worth of gold and platinum was about to be installed in the core of a nuclear reactor, never mind pull off the caper required to steal it. Kate and her cohort, the impulse-control-deficient Johnny, work in a beauty parlour! Yet somehow they've managed to learn about the precious metals in the reactor (something that would still have had a fair amount of secrecy over it at the time), get Kate engaged to the gullible soon-to-be boss of an unfinished nuclear plant, pillow-talk out of him the ideal time to raid the place, obtain a tanker truck that can transport highly corrosive acid, get Kate hired as the secretary of a chemical plant, lightly poison every single member of the workforce, use the deserted factory to produce a specific acid in bulk, then break into a nuclear facility in broad daylight. (That the power station's security consists of two blokes and a padlock is a bit of a stretch too!) All this while running what is clearly a going concern rather than a front, as Kate refuses to pass up the publicity that Jason might bring her.
 |
| "Nah, Johnny, I can't see those creases in the 'sky' at all. Really!" |
But if you're prepared to swallow all this (quite a mouthful, admittedly), it's an entertaining episode. Jason gets the bulk of the best moments, as he endures an embarrassing photoshoot, charms his way into the beauty parlour and dinner with its proprietress, realises what the villains made at the chemical plant and why - exactly the kind of esoteric knowledge that a thriller author should have tucked away in his mental notebook - and bosses around functionaries at the docks as if he's running the place rather than a hedonistic novelist who helps out Interpol for fun.
 |
| "Put out an APB on Jessica Rabbit." |
Annabelle gets a chance to show off more than her computer skills too. Taken prisoner by the bad guys, she refuses to be intimidated and ends up turning the tables on her guard by convincing him that his comrades have abandoned him to the law. After he lets her go and does a runner, she then captures Kate when she returns. Maybe she deserves that four-star rating after all!
 |
| Stewart hoped his Fetlife profile pic would lead to exciting things. |
It's Stewart who gets the stinky end of the stick this time. Tailing Johnny to the warehouse where he's hiding the tanker truck, he's promptly discovered, beaten unconscious and left trussed up like a waistcoated turkey. Except for his payback on Johnny at the end, he gets to be little more than Jason's chauffeur for the rest of the episode. That'll be the last time he ever makes a joke about his availability to Seretse, then...
Fancy Quotes
[Somewhere behind the Iron Curtain, Stewart boards a train to meet Seretse in his sleeper compartment]
Seretse: Make yourself comfortable.
Stewart: Thank you. Seven hours in a B-52 SAC bomber, nine hours in an RAF V-bomber, and three more in a Russian helicopter, gives a man a new slant on comfort.
Seretse: Your reply said you were in the area. Was that a joke?
Stewart: A poor one. I was in Bogota!
[As publicity for his new book, Jason poses in an open shirt with a skimpily-clad model]
Photographer: Bare your chest.
[Jason looks down at his companion]
Photographer: No, Jason!
Jason: [disappointed] Oh.
[When Kate's fiance arrives unexpectedly, she presents Jason to him as her cousin!]
Jason: Let me congratulate you. I can assure you if I weren't a confirmed bachelor-
Kate: And my cousin.
Jason: Er, yes. I would be your greatest rival.
[Stewart and Jason investigate Kate's boutique]
Stewart: Something for you.
Jason: What is it? [reads the label] 'Clichy salon... facelift.' Thanks a lot!
Stewart: Bellman-Parsons chemical, a factory taken over. A tanker with bulk fuel delivery markings. And an electricity generating station, atomic powered, not yet in service.
Jason: I wouldn't say the pieces were falling exactly into place.
Stewart: What exactly would you say, Jason?
Jason: Well, I don't want to quote Mark Caine to you at a time like this, but there was an occasion when he shelved everything and settled for calling in the polizia. [Stewart is surprised] Of course, I didn't publish it.
Cheers!
• After taking Kate to dinner, Jason returns to the Clichy boutique where she presents him with a glass of brandy.
Fight!
Stewart tails the psychotic Johnny to the tanker, but ends up as a punching bag for the criminal and his two goons. It's only the henchmen's desire not to run the risk of a murder charge that keeps Johnny from dismembering the unconscious American with an axe. KO!
 |
| Jason 6, Stewart 4. |
Stewart and Johnny later have a return match in a warehouse, the man from Interpol doing a Tarzan swing from a rope to punt the crook through a support pillar and bury him under a pile of boxes.
Author! Author!
Jason endures a promotional photoshoot for his new book, An Amazon For Me.
This Looks Familiar
Johnny takes a trip to check on the acid tanker, which just happens to have been parked in the Borehamwood scenery docks.
The scenery docks also show themselves in the full light of day at Northwood.
And at the dockyard - so the docks play the docks!
It seems that Kate bought Dianne Lynne's Lotus Elan after she was murdered in 'Handicap Dead'! (This car was apparently Lotus's press demonstrator in real life.)
