17:56 – Sheepy’s opening music.
18:00 – Thames TV morning start-up music.
18:05 – The Tomorrow People S01E11 – The Vanishing Earth (Part 2/4) – The classic 1970s ITV children’s series about a group of teens with paranormal abilities, who use their special gifts to battle evil. This week, Ginger is brainwashed by the mysterious Spidron, who puts him to work in his mine operation. Meanwhile, Stephen and Lefty return to the pier in search of their friend. First broadcast on Mon 16th July 1973 by ITV.
18:29 – Shadows S01E03 – The Witch’s Bottle – a British supernatural television anthology series produced by Thames Television for ITV between 1975 and 1978. This week, teenager Jill visits an old cottage once occupied by another teenager named Jill three hundred years before. The other Jill was burned alive as a witch. First broadcast on Wed 17th Sept 1975 by ITV.
18:54 – Star Trek (The Original Series) – S01E12 – The Menagerie (Part 2) – This week, at Spock’s court martial, he explains himself with mysterious footage about when Capt. Pike was kidnapped by powerful illusion casting aliens. The two-part story was positively received and won a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. First broadcast in the USA on Thu 24th Nov 1966 by NBC.
19:44 – …And Mother Makes Three – S02E06 – All Play and No Work – More gentle middle-class Thames sitcom, starring Wendy Craig as the newly-widowed Sally Harrison, doing her best to bring up her two boisterous sons, Simon and Peter. This week, Mr. Campbell is forced to sack Sally because of the standard of her work, Auntie helps by pointing her in the direction of a job at the boys’ school, and a disagreement about staff dinners sees her try her luck elsewhere. Featuring Damaris Hayman in a minor role. First broadcast on Thu 6th Jan 1972 by ITV. Followed by an ad-hoc 40-second clip of Damaris’ appearance in The Young Ones: Nasty.
20:10 – Brass – S01E10 – More Granada-made northern-drama-satirising comedy, starring Timothy West. This week, Jack has a proposition for Bradley: sell Isobel off. Bradley agrees but Lady P informs him that he’d lost interest in her anyway. Lady P tells Matt H he does not continue to see her she will have his poems published in her name. Isobel implores Charlotte to sleep with Jack so that he will go off her. Austin, McDuff and George experiment with the bouncing bomb with disastrous results. First broadcast on Mon 25th Apr 1983 by ITV.
20:35 – Van der Valk – S02E07 – The Rainbow Ends Here – More Thames-made Amsterdam-based crime drama, starring Barry Foster. This week, Van der Valk searches for a teenage girl (played by Lalla Ward) abducted on her way to a clandestine rendezvous with a married man. The man is ready to help in any way he can, but the commissaris finds her hotel-tycoon brother more willing to cooperate with the kidnappers than the police. Also featuring a dyed-blonde Christopher Timothy and Jim “Bishop Brennan” Norton. First broadcast on Wed 10th Oct 1973 by ITV.
NOTE: This will be the last Van der Valk for a while. Having completed the 13 original episodes (S1: 1972, 6 eps; S2: 1973, 7 eps) tonight, next week we shall be starting Special Branch (1969) for a series or two. After that we shall return to the still-excellent 1977 series of Van der Valk (S3: 12 eps), and then, when the schedule allows, the double-length early 90s eps (S4: 1991, 4 variable eps; S5: 1992, 3 dreadful eps).
21:27 – Get Lost! E03/04 – Kiss Me Quick – A four-part drama by Alan Plater, starring Alun Armstrong as Neville Keaton and Bridget Turner as Judy Threadgold. This week, Judy and Neville continue their search for Jim, solving the riddle of the yellow Beetle, surviving intimidation and enjoying some fish and chips. First broadcast on Fri 26th June 1981 by ITV.
22:20 – Snub TV S02E05 – This week featuring:
• Tangerine: “Sunburst” (video)
• The Breeders: “When I was a Painter” (live studio)
• Nitzer Ebb: “Lightning Man” (video)
• Mute Drivers: “People With AIDS” (Live)
• Silver Bullet: interview, “20 Seconds to Comply” (video extract), “Bring Forth the Guillotine” (video)
• The Breeders: interview, “Iris” (live studio)
• Rhythm-ites: “Heed No Dream” (SnubTV video)
Or as the Radio Times puts it: “This week Snub catches ‘supergroup’ The Breeders, (the Pixies’ Kim Deal, Josephine Wiggs from Perfect Disaster and Throwing Muses’ Tanya Donnelly) recording their debut album; Silver Bullet explain how chart success won’t dilute their hardcore hip hop sound plus Mute Drivers, Tangerine and Nitzer Ebb.
Produced and directed by BRENDA KELLY and PETER FOWLER”
From 1st generation off-air VHS > Panasonic HD recorder > DVD-R > MPEG Streamclip > MPEG4
Video compression: H.264, 352 x 288, deinterlaced
Audio compression: AAC, Stereo (L R), 48.000 kHz, 192 kbps
First broadcast on Mon 12th Feb 1990 at 6.40pm by BBC2.
22:48 – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Original Radio Series) – The Tertiary Phase, Fit the Thirteenth – after a hiatus of 24 years, and the sad death of Douglas Adams after 21 of those, we start the Dirk Maggs’ radio adaptations of the remaining Hitchhiker’s books that had been written in the meantime. Douglas Adams was aware of the project before his death, and it had his blessing. Original Radio Times listing: “Arthur Dent awakes to find that he has spent the last four years on prehistoric Earth, alone in all that time save for five minutes with an infuriating alien called Wowbagger who arrived, insulted him, and left.
Reunited with Ford Prefect, Arthur discovers that the Hitchhikers Guide he threw in the river still works – and is being updated. Rescue appears in the form of a sofa caught in the Space-Time Continuum and Arthur and Ford disappear in a fashion which would cause stern looks from the Campaign For Real Time.
Aboard the Heart of Gold Zaphod Beeblebrox is nursing a large Pan Galactic Gargleblaster and two headaches. He believes that he survived the Total Perspective Vortex while pursuing a Hitchhikers Guide employee called Zarniwoop and that Arthur marooned him by stealing the Heart of Gold, which of course Zaphod himself stole (but then Zaphod thinks he alone has the right to indulge in excitement, adventure and really wild things).
His girlfriend Trillian (who, as Tricia McMillan, is the only human apart from Arthur to survive the Destruction of Earth by the Vogon Constructor Fleet) has no memory at all of these events and is therefore convinced that Zaphod has had a psychotic episode brought on by too many drinks. Tired of his selfishness she snaps and leaves him, having herself beamed by Eddie the shipboard computer in any direction but here.
Meanwhile in the swamps of Squornshellous Zeta, Marvin the Paranoid Android pivots helplessly in circles on an artificial leg, his only company a talkative mattress called Zem…“
First broadcast on Tue 21st Sep 2004 at 6.30pm by BBC Radio 4.
23:16 – COMMENTARY TRACK VERSION of The Tomorrow People S01E07 – The Medusa Strain (Part 2/4) – More interesting, amusing and sometimes scandalous DVD commentary featuring Nicholas Young (John), Peter Vaughan-Clarke (Stephen) and Philip Gilbert (TIM), moderated by Nicholas Briggs. To recap: this is the classic 1970s ITV children’s series about a group of teens with paranormal abilities, who use their special gifts to battle evil. This week, Carol and Stephen jaunt to the Tower of London where they encounter Jedikiah. Jedikiah takes Carol back to Rabowski’s spaceship, hoping to use her as leverage with Peter. First broadcast on Mon 18th June 1973 by ITV. DVD Commentary recorded c. 2002.
23:40 – Secret Diary of a Call Girl S01E01 – a British drama television series based on the blog and books by the pseudonymous Belle de Jour. It stars Billie Piper as Belle, a high-end London call girl. This week, ‘Belle de Jour’ introduces herself to us, talking directly to camera, as she will throughout the series, and explaining that she is a call-girl, working through an agent – partly for safety reasons but also because she does not come cheap. Her real name is Hannah and her family believe that she is a legal secretary, which she told them as she imagined they would find it too boring to ask her about. She explains the need to keep her two lives separate, even to the fact that her apartment is split into two halves, depending upon who she is for which visitor. However, she does break the rules when entertaining a shy young man called Daniel… First broadcast on Thu 27th Sept 2007 by ITV2. I picked up the S1 DVD in CEX for 50p a few years ago, never watched it until I checked out the first episode a couple of nights back with CaB TV in mind. Seemed quite fun, and not too explicit, so thought I’d give it a try to see how it, errrr, goes down.
00:03 – Surprise Bonus Item! — Post-show edit: This was the Scary Picture extra from the Look Around You S2 DVD. 🙂
00:06 – Closedown music.
00:10 – Closedown.