Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) 2000 - some thoughts

My wife loves this programme - largely due to its links with The League of Gentlemen. Marriage has given me exposure to a series that I'd pretty much consigned to the TV history vaults. Here are some thoughts on it...

 I hadn’t paid much attention to Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) when it was first shown in 2000. The cynic in me didn’t trust the Reeves & Mortimer / Fast Show crowd to create something meaningful, and I recall not being massively wowed by what I saw. As a cult TV fan I was aware of an underground hubbub – would the remake work? Would they change it very much? Would a new audience accept it? If it’s a success would the BBC or anyone risk bringing back other classic telefantasy series, such as Doctor Who? More importantly if it fails will it scupper the chance for other telefantasy series to be rebooted – i.e. Doctor Who? To be honest it passed out of the TV schedules and out of my awareness without any great fuss, and in retrospect the answer to the latter question was clearly ‘no’.

Years later when my to-be-wife and I moved in together she brought the DVDs of both series with her. I hadn't realised at the time of the original broadcast that such a collection of cult names were connected with it: David Tennant, The League of Gentlemen, Simon Pegg, to name but a few. But then I wasn't an avid television viewer at that time anyway. A quick scan through the credits cements Randall and Hopkirk's position as an extraordinary lodestone of contemporary and older TV talent, whose fingers spread far and wide. I’d had no idea of this at the time, but it really was a nexus point for excellent actors and production crew, great comedians and writers, and upcoming talent. I’d clearly overlooked a major TV event. But they only made two series.

Mind you, a short run is no reflection of quality – look at the superb BBC4 Dirk Gently series from 2012, and everyone always lauds Fawlty Towers for only doing twelve episodes.

I want to like Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) a lot, but I can't. For me the series doesn’t quite work. Maybe I’m not alone in this, and maybe that’s why only two series were made – I don’t know.

Bob Mortimer tries his best but he’s not a good actor, bless him, and the kind of talent on display from others – guest cast and regulars - only serves to highlight the fact. This is a series that had clearly grabbed the television industry by the scruff of the neck, judging by the who’s who list of participants. But it needed to grab the viewer by the kahunas and hold them for fifty minutes, occasionally slapping them with a surprise or a twist to keep them engaged. As a viewer then, as I am now, I’m constantly reminded by Mortimer that I’m watching a TV drama, and not being absorbed into its world.

Similarly Tom Baker’s Wyvern character in limbo is an interesting original development and gives Marty someone else to engage with but their scenes always leave me feeling distracted; they break up the flow of the episodes and often lack narrative thrust and purpose. Occasionally – just occasionally – I can’t help thinking that some characters were miscast, or possibly guest actors were allowed too much creative freedom and leads me to think of nepotism, jobs for the boys, casting friends as a favour regardless of suitability for the role. It all serves to keep dragging me out of the ‘zone’ as a viewer.

The key difference between this and the original Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) series, of course, is that (as happened with Doctor Who when it was eventually brought back) there has to be a continuing personal storyline underneath the particular mystery of the week. Viewers by the space year 2000, it was felt, wouldn’t accept a basic situation of an investigator and his ghost partner righting wrongs. It’s too simple, too superficial, so there has to be undercurrents and a stronger emotional element; Marty’s ex-fiancée Jeannie thus becomes a more prominent character and the series develops towards a kind of love triangle situation, while Wyvern teaches Marty how to cope with life in limbo. Personally I’m not sold on this assumption of the audience’s sophistication; I think it presupposes that there’s no longer a market for purely escapist TV and that the audience needs to be challenged at all times. I may be wrong in that, and not representative of much of the audience for 21^st Century escapist fantasy TV, but I can pin many of the faults I see in the series on this necessity to be more sophisticated. I find I have to watch the episodes very closely to follow exactly what’s going on, and the closer I watch it the more I notice the aspects that jar.

The individual episode storylines themselves are a fascinating mash-up of genres and homages – which is a predictable no-brainer when you look at the creative bodies involved, and their influences and subsequent achievements. But the series falls between two stools for me: the comedy bits aren’t quite funny enough and the dramatic bits aren’t quite dramatic enough, so it gets mired in some swampy middle ground. Visually and aurally it’s very impressive, made with flair and style, and on paper it looks like a whole world of wonderful - but I just feel the final product fails to live up to the sum of its parts.

But despite this I find that I have a great affection for the series: I admire many of the creative people involved and thus I have a goodwill towards it which makes me really want to like it a lot more than I do! And although I’m critical of it, and some people might fail to understand why I would put myself through watching it, it’s an appreciative criticism that weirdly doesn’t prevent me from enjoying it at the same time. I guess the bottom line is that I don’t love it.