Crossroads - The Movie - Direct to Video!

Back in the early eighties, ITC had a habit of joining episodes of its successful TV shows together and marketing them as movies to TV stations too stingy to fork out for the full series. 

Titles like 'Journey Through the Black Sun', 'The Incredible Voyage of Stingray' and 'The Amazing Adventures of Joe 90' soon found their way onto the fledgling VHS rental market via the label 'Precision Home Video'. 

I still have a copy of 'London Conspiracy' - two episodes of 'The Persuaders!' shamelessly bolted together and displaying a complete disregard for the title by not having any scenes set in the British capital! Uniquely, these tapes came in robust music-cassette style plastic boxes and like their audio counterparts, easily broke and became very scuffed and filthy looking as the years went on. 

ITC attempted to create a movie from its popular soap opera 'Crossroads'. A selection of episodes chronicling the fire at the motel that resulted in the sad departure of Noele Gordon were edited together into an hour and half mini-epic. Additional scenes set at an inquiry into the fire at the Birmingham coroner's office were filmed with actors Geoffrey Keen, Shane Rimmer and Nina Baden-Semper were added to cover the joins and an additional scene which changed the storyline was filmed with Jane Rossington weeping at the graveside of her dead mum. (The latter had originally been passed off as a hoax by the press!) There we also some extra effects scenes spliced in from 'The Medusa Touch'. It was a bit of a mess really and very few broadcasters took up the option on it. 

I hear that it was broadcast once in Singapore.

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Professional Detectives Now Assigned to Lucy Beale Murder Case...

Lt. Columbo has just one more thing to ask Ian Beale

Given that the police are making such a fudge up of investigating the murder of Lucy Beale in Walford, I've called in a few favours and employed some professionals to look into it. They are all pretty good and usually get their man (or woman) within an hour or so... 

NOT twelve bloody months!!! 

Suave Simon Templar will apply his charm to the Walford ladies

Artificial Simon Templar will stake out Arthur's bench

Jim Rockford will ask for directions and get punched by Phil Mitchell

Frank Cannon will check out the cafe

Tonight's Episode - "Top Ten TV Titles"

What is it with writers and producers today? 

What ever happened to the wonderfully evocative and sometime lurid titles of TV episodes we used to have? 

The eagerness with which we waited on any Quinn Martin detective show for that rich baritone announcer to reveal “Tonight's Episode” and win the bet as to whether it contained either the word 'murder' or 'death' somewhere in it.

These days, episode titles seem somewhat repetitive and hum drum. There was a phase - not so long ago - when all episode titles seemed to consist of a single word – usually something like 'Gambit' or 'Survival' or 'Flashpoint'. These days though the cliches come thick and fast. Often episode titles are simply a pointer – a two to three word precis of the gist of the plot. 'Daleks in Manhattan' is probably the worst offender of recent years.

In the interest of piquing curiosity in the subject, I present my own Top Ten Episode Titles in No Particular Order.

1. Public Eye - You Think It'll Be Marvellous – But It's Always a Rabbit (1965 – 1.10). The sixties/seventies private eye series that starred the late Alfred Burke always gave good titles. Often they were quotes from dialogue in the ever quirky scripts. 

2. Callan: Nice People Die At Home (1969 – 2.14) Nice and grim as one would expect from Callan.

3. Star Trek: For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky (1969 – 3.08) Another dialogue quote from a series that also enjoyed quoting the classics and quite elegantly pretentious.

4. Doctor Who: The Death of Doctor Who (1965 – 2.34) A good lurid title from Terry Nation which is almost designed to piss off the nerd. Needless to say, the TV programme referred to in the title is still going strong after fifty or so years...

5. Space 1999: The Rules of Luton (1976 – 2.07) Amuses me every time I see this episode title. The story goes that the American producer saw the name 'Luton' on a road sign on the way to the studio and decided it would make a good name for a planet of intelligent trees. 

6. Cannon: Bad Cats and Sudden Death (1972 – 2.01) It's for titles like these that the Quinn Martin announcer's voice was purposely trained.

7. The Streets of San Francisco: A Trout in the Milk (1973 – 1.13) You really want to see this episode.

8. Hawaii Five-0: Three Dead Cows at Makapuu part one (1970 – 2.23) You probably don't want to see this episode.

9. Mannix: Skid Marks on a Dry Run (1967 – 1.2) Heh. Heh. It says 'Skid Marks'.

10. The Saint: The Effete Angler (1962 – 1.09) Fishing for trouble!

And while we are at it... here's a spelling error from 'Galactica 1980'.