Production order: 12 | ITC code: 5127 | Airdate order: 22 | DVD order: 17
Those Responsible
Writer: Gerald Kelsey
Director: John Gilling
Where & When
London, England: November 22nd
The Inexplicable Mystery
A late-night tube train pulls into Redbridge station... with all its passengers dead! A guard who boards to investigate soon keels over and joins them at their final destination.
The Mystery Explained
Multinational chairman Draper is taking insider trading to the next level - by tapping the diplomatic hotline between the British Prime Minister and the President of the United States, intending to get advance warning of a revaluation of gold prices that will allow him to buy or sell early and make a killing when the markets respond. One of the technicians responsible, Taylor, became a security risk, so Draper's subordinates killed him by gassing the tube train on which he was travelling in the hope that the sheer number of victims would make it impossible for the authorities to find their true target or the motive for his death.
Review
'Last Train To Redbridge' stands out in Department S's run as not only having the highest body count - ten people are murdered, nine on the train plus the grieving widow of one of the victims - but also the most ruthless villains. Terrell in 'One Of Our Aircraft Is Empty' may have planned to eliminate everyone on an airliner, but he failed thanks to our heroes, whereas the criminals here actually succeed in killing a load of innocent bystanders just to ensure they get one man. They almost kill Jason too, reducing the normally super-confident sleuth to a weak, bewildered wreck so shellshocked he even loses his fashion sense - there's no way he would ever have tolerated that dressing gown if he were compos mentis. After an experience like that, it's a wonder he didn't decide that sticking to fiction would be a great deal safer.
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| "Ford? Zaphod? Is that you?" |
As the mastermind behind the operation, Leslie Sands's Draper (any relation to Don?) makes for a thoroughly sociopathic villain, annoyed with his subordinates for committing multiple murders in a way that led the cops to him - his company made the gas - without the tiniest remorse for the victims. As well as Jason and the unfortunate Mrs Taylor, he also had no qualms about ordering Annabelle's murder, so it's lucky that her two male colleagues turned up when they did.
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| Eyebrows by Groucho. |
The other characters are less well-served by the episode, though - including its stars. A big issue is that, as became increasingly common as the series went on, its unique selling point - the character of Jason King - is underused, or even misused. He's a hedonistic, widely travelled thriller author with wild and crazy ideas who works with Interpol on a freelance basis to come up with insights that more conventional investigators would never even consider... but Department S's writers too often treated him as a bog-standard detective with pithy one-liners and comedy sideburns. This is one such case: Jason's contribution is the kind of plodding gumshoe work (questioning witnesses, tracking down taxi destinations) that any old flatfoot could have done. It's a waste of his unique talents.
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| "That reminds me, I really must stop my Hitler before going on holiday." |
Parts of the story don't stand up to much scrutiny, either. From what the bad guys say to Annabelle in a conveniently expository "You're going to die anyway, so I may as well tell you all the details of my evil plot" scene, Taylor chickened out when he learned Draper's true intentions and ran into the tube tunnels adjoining the disused station, managing to board a train waiting at signals; one of Draper's goons followed him and planted a canister of deadly nerve gas in the carriage. This means that the train's guard let two random people board the train between stations without telling the driver, Taylor didn't notice Bray following him into the carriage - and Bray had a canister of deadly nerve gas just sitting around in Draper's hideout! Talk about having plans for every contingency...
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| The first place you look for incriminating company secrets is obviously under the chairman's novelty desk duck. |
This strained plausibility may be because of the way that the series came into being. Co-creator Dennis Spooner devised many of the bizarre mysteries for the teaser sequences himself, then let his pool of writers pick ones they liked and write a story to explain them. "A tube train arrives at a station with all its passengers dead!" sounds like a perfect hook, but actually explaining the whys and wherefores is almost certainly going to end up with "poison gas" as the reason (as later happened in real life in Tokyo), and from there justifying how and why the gas got on the train gets rather harder. The end result is an episode that's workmanlike at best; it's not actually bad, but doesn't manage to elevate itself any higher than average either.
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| "Definitely one of Bill Clinton's." |
As a sidenote, somebody on the production team was a typography geek, matching the font used in the title card to that of the London Underground!
Fancy Quotes
[Annabelle enters as Stewart ends a phone call to Jason]
Annabelle: Jason?
Stewart: He's on his way over.
Annabelle: She'll be disappointed.
Stewart: Who?
Annabelle: No idea.
[Annabelle tells Stewart how Mrs Taylor was kidnapped at gunpoint right in front of her]
Annabelle: Would it have helped if I'd got myself shot?
Stewart: Sure. The Department prefers dead heroes to live failures.
[Jason tracks down a suspect]
Jason: Good evening.
Bray: What do you want?
Jason: I'm looking for a man, medium height, dark hair, sort of, er... [realises he's facing the very person he's after] Thirty... three? Could be you.
[Jason's doctor is very unhappy about Stewart taking him out of hospital]
Doctor: With all the sedatives he's taken, there's no knowing what he may do next.
Stewart: Doctor, what you've just said applies whether he's under sedation or not.
Cheers!
Shockingly, Jason doesn't have a single drink this episode! He does, however, manage to ask Stewart for one in his drugged-up state at the hospital, so he's not completely out of character.
Fight!
No sooner has Jason stepped through the door of number 4, Hope Street, than he's pummelled unconscious by a trio of unpleasant men. KO!
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| Jason 8, Stewart 5. |
Stewart chases after one of Mrs Taylor's kidnappers, Shatner-kicking him to the ground before engaging in a tussle. Unfortunately, the crook's partner shows up to lend a helping fist before they both run.
All three Departmentarians get to contribute to the final barney as Jason and Stewart find Draper's snooping station and rescue Annabelle from the heavily-eyebrowed mastermind and his three stooges.
This Looks Familiar
Ah, corridor. We missed you last episode, but we're glad you managed a cameo in the hospital this week.
And Ancillary Building too! It's been a while. The Chymrikon building is enriched by your presence.
Inside which we find... oh, hey! Corridor again!
The bad guys tool around in Jeff Randall's Vauxhall Victor. Sticking tape over the first and last letters of the plate isn't fooling anyone!
Poor Mrs Taylor is mown down by what looks suspiciously like the red Lotus Elan last seen in 'The Shift That Never Was'. Wonder if Lotus knew their demonstrator car had a stuntwoman (or more likely a stuntman in a wig) tumbling all over it?
