The
lowdown: 'The Knock' is a British drama series whose focus
is the professional and private lives of Customs and
Excise officers, and was
inspired by an earlier real-life documentary series, 'The Duty Men'. A
total of 37 episodes were
broadcast on ITV between
10 April 1994 and 11 November 2000. The series initially starred Caroline
Lee Johnson, David
Morrissey, Malcolm Storry
and Anthony Valentine. The team was charged with the task of protecting
England's borders
and preventing the smuggling
of illicit goods into the country, including drugs, weapons, bullion
and other contraband.
Many cases required members
of the team to go undercover, and their work often took them to exotic
locations across
Europe (but probably filmed
somewhere in England).
The
episodes: Colin Baker featured as a villain named Desmond
Dewhurst in a four-part story arc comprising episodes
3-6 of series three, which
were broadcast from 20 April to 11 May 1997. Dewhurst is a forger who specialises
in making
plates for counterfeiting
banknotes. Customs agents stop and search a Range Rover at a British
port and find a US $20
banknote plate that had
been made by Dewhurst. The car is seized and placed in a warehouse, and
the Customs team
set a trap is for the person
they expect to break in to get the plate. However, their plans go awry
and the suspect is shot
dead. Meanwhile, Dewhurst
flees to Morocco with his partner, Anna, and two Customs agents are sent
to locate him and
and hope to arrest and extradite
him. However, Dewhurst's client wants him to make a replacement plate.
A second plot
features Dennis Waterman
as a successful smuggler, John Danson. He mainly specialises in smuggling
illegal tobacco
into the country, but he
is approached by two villains from the former East Germany who want to
go into a "partnership"
with him, but Danson knows
that they really intend to take over his operation. The East Germans are
behind Dewhurst's
counterfeit plates and track
him down in Casablanca. The Germans want to use Danson's smuggling network
to get the
plates into Britain. Dewhurst
eventually returns to Britain to arrange a deal with Danson, and agrees
to meet with Danson
and an associate of the
Germans, Giles Leaky, but the meeting does not go as planned as the Germans
have abducted
Danson's son, and he takes
Leaky as a hostage. Danson lets Dewhurst go, who is arrested by Customs
agents when he
boards a plane that is bound
for Singapore. Baker's character is named Desmond in the show but Donald
in the credits.
Who
connections: Apart from Colin Baker
and David Morrissey, the series features several actors who have appeared
in
Doctor Who, including Alex Kingston (Silence in the Library/Forest
of the Dead), Peter O'Brien (The Waters of Mars),
Danny Webb (The Impossible
Planet), Catherine Schell (City of Death), and Michael Brandon
(The Stolen Earth).
Video
clips: Desmond Dewhurst
8.8mb Dewhurst
and Anna 6.5mb
Dewhurst is arrested
2.6mb |
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