Production order: Unknown | ITC code: 5128 | Airdate order: 28 | DVD order: 28
Those Responsible
Writer: Leslie Darbon
Director: Leslie Norman
Where & When
Liverpool, England: May 2nd
The Inexplicable Mystery
A group of robbers goes to a great deal of effort to break into a warehouse. When they finally gain entry, they are delighted to find their prize... a crate of fish soup.
The Mystery Explained
Portuguese food manufacturer Ramos is on the verge of bankruptcy, so has converted his money made from illegal dealings into diamonds to keep it out of the hands of the authorities, intending to smuggle the stones inside tins of soup. Ramos' crooked assistant Segres plots with a British partner to switch the crate hiding the diamonds for one of genuine soup - but when Ramos swaps to a new type of crate at the last minute, the conspirators need to obtain a duplicate before they can make the exchange.
Review
So here we are: the final episode of Department S.
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| "Security! Someone trashed our dressing room - wait, what do you mean, 'cancelled'?" |
The show doesn't exactly go out on a high; 'Soup Of The Day' is too small-scale and inconsequential for that. But neither is it a low point, as it presents an initially minor mystery that escalates rapidly, and also has some light, frothy fun with its characters. It's an entertaining little romp that doesn't really stick in the mind, so could almost be a metaphor for the series as a whole.
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| Hipster-run pop-up shops selling garbage are not a recent invention. |
Getting the criticisms out of the way first, it has some slow moments - usually when the main characters aren't on screen, as this means we're stuck watching the villains bicker and threaten each other. But there are times when our heroes' discussions of the case plod a bit, too. (They are, after all, talking about soup.) The villains themselves are a rum bunch, one faction so camp and effete they make Jason seem positively brutish. There also seems to be one set of bad guys too many, Ramos' diamond buyer and his thugs contributing nothing but menacing glowers to the story. And why do the thieves even need to switch crates at all? Why not just steal the diamonds and be done with it?
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| Desperately searching their contractual small print for a sequel clause. |
On the plus side, the mystery itself keeps the attention, as it lets the viewer ask the same question as Department S: why would anyone go to such lengths to steal a crate of soup? Once the obvious answers like "there's something hidden in the cans" are ruled out early on, it not only piques Jason's interest, but ours too. He quickly gets the idea to check out the source of the soup and jets off to Portugal, having his own little adventure in parallel to the main investigation.
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| "Mrs Grade? I'm so glad you enjoyed my performance. Please let your husband know..." |
Which, unfortunately, is another point against the story - Jason's escapades are far more interesting than Stewart and Annabelle's, who are left to poke around the less salubrious parts of Liverpool and London looking for soup crates and transistor radios. Still, this does at least mean we get to see Stewart intimidate the man who would later play the Nazi with the melting face from Raiders Of The Lost Ark as he minces around in a Sergeant Pepper outfit. (Jeremy does the mincing, not Stewart.)
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| This guy... |
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| ...is also this guy. |
And it's perhaps fitting that the last shot of the series is a smirking Jason about to win over another conquest, while the previous scene saw Stewart, Annabelle and Seretse together in triumphant mood as they catch another group of bad guys. Once he gets his own spin-off show, Jason at one point says that he no longer works for Department S, suggesting that they're getting along perfectly well without him. Perhaps Annabelle and Stewart are still out there somewhere, flirting and swapping gentle innuendoes in amongst hunting down mad scientists, spies and terrorists with bizarre plans for world domination. We can dream.
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| "And it's goodbye from us..." |
So that's it. Twenty-eight episodes, some good, some terrible, this one squarely in the middle. There are far worse ways to go out.
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| "...and it's goodbye from them." |
Fancy Quotes
Ramos: Senor King! The well-known author!
Jason: Oh, are you a fan of Mark Caine's?
Ramos: No, no no, not really. I find Mark Caine in extremely poor taste.
Jason: Oh! Well, I must confess I feel the same about your soup.
Cheers!
• Jason enjoys a large glass of some brown libation while meeting with his publisher in an unspecified Chinatown.
• He later gets Segres drunk in order to find out the details of Ramos' plot and the attempted doublecross with the crates. As he's not a method actor, he joins in with a glass or two.
Fight!
Jason intervenes in an attempt by two of Ramos' goons to kill an underling by sending one flying with his car, which seems a bit unsporting, and punching out the second.
Seretse, of all people, grapples with Jeremy to stop him escaping as the cops burst in on the raiders.
This Looks Familiar
The warehouses in Liverpool are played by the decided non-Scouse scenery docks at Borehamwood.
Stewart retraces the exact taxi journey he took to Portobello Road in 'A Cellar Full Of Silence', courtesy of some repeated exterior footage.
The corridor makes its swansong appearance in Department S as part of Ramos' office.
One bunch of villains has rented its Ford Zephyr from Baddies-R-Us.
