The haunting melancholy of Bergerac - a study of loss through nostalgia

[monkfromhavana]

Series 2 Episode 1: Over the past 20 years, everytime I've seen Bergerac on TV it's been this episode. Pretty good.

Episode 2 was a cracker. No wonder there were so many unreported sexual assaults in the 70s and 80s if this wads anything to go by. Jim asks the rape victim is she didn't invite herself to Galbraith's advances. Judgements on her personal life, Hungerford imploring Jim "He's one of us", and I winced at Lil saying that if the police hadn't put the victim up in another hotel she'd have asked her to leave.

Fulton was great, Val Kilmer's ex and some 80s boobs on show. Still no sign of Celia Imrie though, despite high billing.

Another 80s nighclub scene, this time London sleaze.

DJ drop - 'Night Birds' by Shakatak.

[BlodwynPig]

You're heading into the warm zone - the next few episodes are bona fide classics (Norman Wisdom!)

Yeh, episode 2 showed the cuntier side of the regular cast - especially Brexit Britain First Lil.

[gilbertharding]

Still no sign of Celia Imrie though, despite high billing.

Ah, the delightful Marina Bellsplash.

I love Celia Imrie, but she REEKS of Acorn Antiques in this. I think it's the fashions, and the direction.

A woman in 198x would NEVER hang her designer suit jacket with Jacobean ruff collar detail over the back of her chair!

[monkfromhavana]

You're heading into the warm zone - the next few episodes are bona fide classics (Norman Wisdom!)

Yeh, episode 2 showed the cuntier side of the regular cast - especially Brexit Britain First Lil.

Both episodes have seemed to be a lot tighter in terms of story. Series 1 seemed to be them being not entirely sure which direction it was heading and a bit flabby. An example be the Royal Barge - you can imagine them being sat around writing it and brainstorming that Jim would have a regular watering hole that would be the centre of a few stories, but then not actually bothering to put any meat on the bones.

[BlodwynPig]

Agree completely. The idea that this would be a soapy series is dismissed by series 2, at least in terms of the stereotypical characters such as Chef and Lil. Resigning them to bit parts and then culling them was a good decision. Just not enough time to elaborate on minor characters...however, excellent writing in future series means that some of them get a fair chunk of screen time with actual impact and none of the candy floss inherent to shows like Triangle and Garnock Way.

[monkfromhavana]

I've vaguely heard of Triangle, but what the hell is Garnock Way? Even IMDB barely has any details.

[BlodwynPig]

I've vaguely heard of Triangle, but what the hell is Garnock Way? Even IMDB barely has any details.

See also "Quayside" (a short-lived Newcastle based soap opera from 1997). Garnock Way was a Scottish soap from the late 70s.

[monkfromhavana]

I'm still hot for Bergerac, but watch series seems to have been taken down, and my best source, Dailymotion doesn't seem to have a working version of s2 e3 and I'm not skipping one.

[BlodwynPig]

I'm still hot for Bergerac, but watch series seems to have been taken down, and my best source, Dailymotion doesn't seem to have a working version of s2 e3 and I'm not skipping one.

I think its changed domain...w-s.do? I think they can be found on one of the putlockers too. I've been Bergerac lazy as I had to prepare a presentation and was nervous. But done that now, so maybe a few more episodes before the wife comes.

[mothman]

maybe a few more episodes before the wife comes.

Sounds a bit Tantric.

[BlodwynPig]

Sounds a bit Tantric.

Erotic melancholy
Kinky nostalgia

[mothman]

Whimsical bondage?

^{John Peel played them, etc.}

[BlodwynPig]

Slow gozing now with subtle shifts in the character of Bergerac - actually pretty bad acting perhaps due to the forced romance with this French lady. Cringey puppy dog crap.

However, the latest episode (although very anachronistic) features the soon to be dead from AIDS, Gary Bond, former lover of Jeremy Brett. It's quite a powerful performance despite the mullet and the softly softly approach to dealing with sexual assault (attempted - oblivious to the fact that it's his daughter).

[BlodwynPig]

So I returned to finish off the last few episodes of Series 8 this week - a real tumble into crap TV, sadly. Jim just seems lost. One eye on his Liotard lover in France and doing the bare minimum at work. He retires only to be hauled back to Jersey to help on a diplomatic case involving Julian Glover with a terrible Swedish accent. With that all done and dusted, he's back off to France and Charlie arrives to ruin his marriage proposal speech. It's all very clunky and disjointed. Liotard is a terrible actress and her father has an even worse French accent - think Pops from LoG.

Nice idyllic setting though, the French scenes, but I could do without the prolonged shots of Bergerac in sun hat and sweaty loose v-neck t-shirt "toiling" in the vineyard.

The previous episode was actually quite good as it featured (for the last time?) Deborah, Jim's ex-wife, who became something of a horn dog in mid-period Bergerac and still is - tipping now into MILF territory. She does manic but futile anger very well and there is a scene after she is kidnapped where some bloke who looks like a pug-nosed Rasputin does some bondage on her - pure filth. The baddy from Passenger 57 (Bruce Payne) plays Deborah's dodgy new love interest and Jack Sugden (Emmerdale!) amusingly plays her ex-lover who eventually defeats Payne in a battle over the sexy Debs. You can tell that Deborah doesn't want this ageing chump, but has no choice in the end. Poor Jim - missed out on a glorious twilight sex life.

The Christmas special opens with new credits, the music is ruined even more and the animation of the island - Bergerac title and Jim's face is rubbish - why did they bother changing it? Finally, Crozier has the beard too.

I've only worked my way through a third of it as its 1.5 hours long, but it was rather pleasing to hear the return of the languid funk motif with a jazzy rearrangement. It's probably my favourite bit of incidental music of any tv show - just that smooth bass sound. I'm making it a mission to somehow recreate it.

[BlodwynPig]

I mean come on








poor Jim

[BlodwynPig]

ah, she appears in Season 9 in an episode called "All for Love" so we'll wave her goodbye after all.

[Norton Canes]

UKTV's Drama channel has been showing Bergerac on Saturday mornings for a while now, I've been catching as much as I can but they're triple bills that kick of at 8am and I'm not usually up until the 10am episode, the latest of which was S03E09 or 'Tug of War' as it is of course better known. As with all archival TV I tend to watch it through Doctor Who-tinted spectacles and this installment doesn't disappoint, with appearances from Alan 'Underworld' Lake (Diana Dors husband, as I'm sure everyone knows), Stephen 'Varos/Genesis' Yardley, Edwin 'sorry... The Twin Dilemma' Richfield and Mary '...dvoratrelundar' Tamm, all of whom put in sterling turns. Unfortunately I missed the first ten minutes which is annoying but it did mean that like Bergerac himself I had to fit the pieces of the story together. The plot did seem overly complex this week as it seemed to feature three villainous characters all with unrelated motives but by the end it all resolved with a rather clumsy stand-off set piece. And yes there was pathos, as Jim appeared after the denouement to escort Alan Lake's on-parole lag back to the clink. All of which made for a thoroughly satisfactory hour's viewing.

So Blodwyn Pig, Patrick McGoohan famously said that of the 17 episodes of The Prisoner, there were only seven that counted - i.e. that actually advanced the overall plot, or provided crucial character developments, or were just bloody good. If you could boil Bergerac down to seven installments, which would you choose?

[BlodwynPig]

UKTV's Drama channel has been showing Bergerac on Saturday mornings for a while now, I've been catching as much as I can but they're triple bills that kick of at 8am and I'm not usually up until the 10am episode, the latest of which was S03E09 or 'Tug of War' as it is of course better known. As with all archival TV I tend to watch it through Doctor Who-tinted spectacles and this installment doesn't disappoint, with appearances from Alan 'Underworld' Lake (Diana Dors husband, as I'm sure everyone knows), Stephen 'Varos/Genesis' Yardley, Edwin 'sorry... The Twin Dilemma' Richfield and Mary '...dvoratrelundar' Tamm, all of whom put in sterling turns. Unfortunately I missed the first ten minutes which is annoying but it did mean that like Bergerac himself I had to fit the pieces of the story together. The plot did seem overly complex this week as it seemed to feature three villainous characters all with unrelated motives but by the end it all resolved with a rather clumsy stand-off set piece. And yes there was pathos, as Jim appeared after the denouement to escort Alan Lake's on-parole lag back to the clink. All of which made for a thoroughly satisfactory hour's viewing.

So Blodwyn Pig, Patrick McGoohan famously said that of the 17 episodes of The Prisoner, there were only seven that counted - i.e. that actually advanced the overall plot, or provided crucial character developments, or were just bloody good. If you could boil Bergerac down to seven installments, which would you choose?

oooh, bloody hell. I don't have much of an archival memory, so let me skim through the episodes list...

1. Fires in the Fall
2. Nice People Die in Bed
3. A Touch of Eastern Promise
4. The Memory Man
5. Root and Branch
6. A Man of Sorrows
7. Almost Like a Holiday

...8. All the Sad Songs

although pretty much 90% of the others could make that list at any given time.

[monkfromhavana]

I caught a bit of one yesterday, not sure if it's one of the spooky ones, had Charles Gray as some kind of occultist who ended up bursting into flames at the bottom of a lift shaft.

[Norton Canes]

I was going to post about that. Only the night before I'd finally got round to watching the first episode of 70's occult paranormal drama The Omega Factor, where a man investigating claims of psychic activity is warned off by the sinister threats of a purveyor of occult literature. Then... Bergerac does the same thing all over again

It can't be coincidence

[BlodwynPig]

I caught a bit of one yesterday, not sure if it's one of the spooky ones, had Charles Gray as some kind of occultist who ended up bursting into flames at the bottom of a lift shaft.

One of the two or three (if you include The Dig) spookies.

Mind you, the final series is so bleak and desolate it's like Jim's drifted into the spirit world.

Update: still haven't finished final season

[Norton Canes]

Didn't watch much this weekend - caught the last few minutes of one that ended with the most unconvincing staging of a pedestrian being hit by a car I've ever seen, before bailing ten minutes into the tennis brat one after the excruciating scenes where they tried to pretend the actors on an empty court were playing in front of a huge Wimbledon crowd.

Always a pleasure to see Louise Jameson though.

[BlodwynPig]

Back on the old Bergerac tonight, trying to finish off the final series, doesn't look promising

The Waiting Game

Bergerac investigates companies seeking trade licenses.

[BlodwynPig]

Didn't watch much this weekend - caught the last few minutes of one that ended with the most unconvincing staging of a pedestrian being hit by a car I've ever seen, before bailing ten minutes into the tennis brat one after the excruciating scenes where they tried to pretend the actors on an empty court were playing in front of a huge Wimbledon crowd.

Always a pleasure to see Louise Jameson though.

Indeed it is. Never fancied her as a kid though, perhaps a touch of the old melancholy is enough to strengthen the libido.

[BlodwynPig]

Well, Jim has found himself in Salisbury and, so far, no evidence of Novichoks.

[BlodwynPig]

Back on the old Bergerac tonight, trying to finish off the final series, doesn't look promising

well, what started as possibly the worst Bergerac, all nonsensical strands and convenient plotting, ended up being rather enjoyable. They've done away with familiar guest stars now and rely generally on second-rate actors (Simon "could have been Bond" Oates), but this didn't detract from a rather nice dovetailing storyline involving dodgy trade licensing, arms dealing and feminine intuition. Jim is still the master of blundering about - this time getting whacked on the head with a baseball bat after failing to stealthily check out something suspicious round Charlie's.

Love the souped up bass in the end credits too.

[BlodwynPig]

Episode 8, the show is creaking to an end but again it still delivers on some level. This one is Bergerac Meets The Shadow Over Innsmouth, in which Jim investigates the disappearance of a Major's wife, who has taken off with an Atlantean cult somewhere in the south of England. The cult leader gives a good performance, teetering on the poetic "we went to fight for peace and we gained a desert. We are the enemy!"

Again no familiar faces apart from a brief cameo by Terrence Harvey and a larger role for Eamonn "ER/Oz/Til Death Do Us Part" Walker.

Jim's breathing is getting slightly more raspy and you can almost see the crease between Nettles Bergerac and Nettles Midsomer. He's still doing some action scenes (lifting chairs down from tables. painting swimming pools), but these are increasingly causing him to seem "past it". Its another layer of melancholy, remembering oh those very short months ago when I was rewatching a lithe and sun-tanned Jim cavorting in series 1 of the show. Fuck me, even the Jersey weather is early 90s British grey.

[BlodwynPig]

So its done! Complete. The final episode "All for Love" was a hotch potch extended Christmas special which sees Jim turning to drink after being dumped by letter by Madame Aubrey. The down on his luck ex-copper ends up in Bath and begins an illicit affair with the wife of a dodgy arts dealer and in due course gets framed for the supposed murder of the husband, who in fact had offed Bill Nighy. Philip Glenister also stars in a minor role. Jim, true to form, is shit at detecting, shit at falling in love and shit at seeing through lies. It takes the return of the lovely Deborah, a soft-hearted Charlie and Jim's ex-colleagues to dig him out of this big hole. The finale is fairly dramatic, if you watched it in 1991 that is - Jim gets hoisted on a petard but seemingly rises from the dead with a slight scratch on the shoulder, a luxury yacht explodes on the Avon and Deborah looks all moody with a shotgun in her hand.

"I wouldn't go booking that holiday yet" says Charlie.

"See ya" responds Jim.

And that sums up Ex-Sgt Bergerac quite neatly. An increasingly diminished character played by an increasingly poor actor supported by some larger than life secondary characters and great guest stars.

In the end the melancholy still haunts, the loss is still felt, but it was time for Jim to fade away...probably to Guernsey and more puppy dog love.

[monkfromhavana]

The unremitting melancholia and emotional tumult of Wycliffe next?

[BlodwynPig]

The unremitting melancholia and emotional tumult of Wycliffe next?

Never got into that, after my time.

Morse maybe but he's a bit mainstream nowadays.