Department S Reviews: 25: 'A Small War Of Nerves'

Production order: 20 | ITC code: 5126 | Airdate order: 23 | DVD order: 25

Those Responsible

Writer: Harry W Junkin

Director: Leslie Norman

Where & When

Wiltshire, England: April 20th

The Inexplicable Mystery

On a train, a man named Greg Halliday tries to read a note containing an address in London, but the writing is reversed and unreadable. After being helped by a passenger he reaches a guest house, only to be confronted by a mocking double of himself!

The Mystery Explained

Halliday is a chemical weapons specialist who has developed a conscience after creating a nerve agent called Otriox-5. Appalled by its lethality - and the fact that many other nations have similar mass poisons of their own - he plans to release a stolen vial on London, hoping that the horror of death on a colossal scale will force other nations to come to their senses and ban all such weapons.

Review

The last of Department S's quartet of anti-authority tales (after 'The Perfect Operation', 'The Duplicated Man' and 'Spencer Bodily') is also the best. It's not so much for the case itself - the bizarre mystery in the teaser is a cheat, as it's just a hallucination experienced by the chemical-addled Halliday - as for the stakes, the snappiness of the script and direction... and the performance of a certain guest star.

He'll need something bigger than that to cook a liver.

Let's get the latter out of the way first. Greg Halliday is played by none other than future-Sir Anthony Hopkins, in one of his first screen roles. It's a long way from his best-known parts as a stuffy English butler and a cannibalistic psychiatrist, his Welsh accent very strong here, but he certainly makes an impression. Even at this early stage of his career Hopkins gives it everything he's got, playing Halliday as anguished and desperate but also deeply conflicted, the same moral sense that brought him to this position now restraining him from carrying out his plan. It's a cut above the usual ITC guest performances, and it's easy to see how the actor made enough of an impression to move onto bigger things.

"The whole world shall witness the glory of my sausage!"

It also brings out the best in one of the regular actors. As the series went on, Peter Wyngarde started hamming it up more and more as Jason King was given an increasing number of comedic, even slapstick, scenes. But faced with mass murder on an almost inconceivable scale, our hero becomes very serious indeed. The final confrontation between Jason and Halliday as the scientist prepares to release his nerve gas upon London sees the former far, far more intense and angry than we've ever seen him before, to the point where it's almost out of character. But it's entirely forgivable, because the scene gives Wyngarde a rare chance to play Jason in fully dramatic mode, with no irony or camp - and not only that, but to do so against Anthony bloody Hopkins! Wyngarde's audio commentary (sadly not on my version of the DVDs) apparently claims that he deliberately didn't rehearse the scene with Hopkins beforehand so that the first take would have extra tension. If so, the plan certainly worked.

"Three of us will soon be unemployed? Well, best of luck."

Interestingly, Jason is now very much not only the star of the show, but (for this story, at least) also the driving force of the investigation. When we first meet him and Stewart, it's the author who is playing the leader's role explaining to the American why Seretse has given them this as yet non-mysterious case, rather than the other way around. Later he starts issuing orders to his erstwhile partners, is the first point of contact when the police report progress on the case, and ultimately ends up striding around the Trevor Building in charge of the search before talking Halliday out of releasing the nerve gas. With Annabelle's role in the episode little more than a glorified secretary and Stewart reduced to chauffeur and sounding board for the man with the moustache, you can see why some at ITC considered a solo Jason King series a worthwhile idea. Maybe if they'd also had more scripts of this calibre, it might have worked out better...

"Don't worry about the bluescreen, I'm sure they'll put a background in later."

The only real flaw in the story is that Halliday's kidnap and torture (off-screen; 24 is still a long way away) doesn't amount to anything except a way to ensure that Department S don't find him too quickly. The kidnappers are generic goons with purely mercenary motives, so make little impression. For that matter, there isn't any explanation for how they know about his theft of the nerve agent, or why they know exactly where to find him - they even arrive at the guest house before he does! A smaller quibble is that Department S is specifically called in by obnoxious chief scientist Stickney (who hints that should something permanent happen to Halliday in the process of finding him, it would be for the best - a suggestion that appalls Sir Curtis) on the grounds that they're the only people who can possibly track him down, but they don't take a single action that wouldn't have been done by a competent police force.

"Hmm... no. Not for me."

For once, issues like that don't matter too much as the rest of the tale is strong enough to let them be overlooked. It even employs some surprisingly modern storytelling techniques (especially for an ITC show), not wasting time showing the minutia of the good guys following each lead but simply cutting straight to the next link in the chain the moment the viewer has the information they need. If only Philip Broadley had taken notes!

Fancy Quotes

Stickney: Are you the Jason King that writes the Mark Caine books?

Jason: Yes.

Stickney: Ah. Now that I've met you, I must read one of them sometime.

Stickney: Our work at Lansdowne is top secret.

Jason: Well, it's hideous enough to be so.

Stickney: I agree completely. Chemical warfare is just as horrifying to me as it is to you.

Jason: You work at it. We don't.

Stickney: It is a deterrent. Every bit as final as nuclear weapons.

Jason: Isn't civilisation wonderful?

Stickney: Are you amused, Mr King?

Jason: Constantly. But in this case, terrified.

Annabelle: Well, I checked all our routine sources.

Jason: And got routine results.

Jason: Offer a reward of five hundred pounds.

Stewart: [hurriedly, to Annabelle] Make it one hundred.

Jason: Annabelle, there are times when I... quite like you.

Stewart: My, my. Guards at a health hydro.

Jason: Very common.

Stewart: With dogs?

Jason: Well, it keeps the frenzied guests from breaking out and hurtling towards the nearest bar.

Stewart: Shall we check in as patients?

Jason: Oh, don't be droll.

Stewart: I don't know, you could lose a couple of pounds here and there.

Jason: Well, I'd be positively skinny!

Halliday: Right now, I'd settle for a small bottle of brandy.

Jason: What an excellent idea, I could do with a large one myself.

[Halliday holds a vial of Otriox out of a high window]

Halliday: Stay where you are! I've got to do it.

Jason: Well, what's stopping you? I'm the last person on earth to make a moral judgement.

Cheers!

• With the search for Halliday having gone nowhere, Jason consoles himself with a tipple and a cigarette.

Fight!

When Jason is caught at gunpoint by Ruckert, he makes a desperate counter-attack that - rather surprisingly - succeeds, the bearded thug ending up unconscious in a heap.

Stewart foolishly makes Halliday suspicious of him while also having his back to the scientist. One judo chop later, and our brown-clad hero is out for the count. KO!