The
lowdown: 'Randall & Hopkirk (deceased)' is a BBC remake
of the 1970s ITV series of the same name, and stars
Vic Reeves as Marty Hopkirk
and Bob Mortimer as Jeff Randall. They run a private detective agency,
and Marty is killed
in a car accident
during a case. However, he returns as a ghost to help his business partner
to find his killer, and has
one night before he must
return to his grave forever. He can only allow one person to see and hear
him, and chooses Jeff
rather than his fiance,
Jeannie (Emilia Fox). Marty helps solve his own murder. However, he stays
out of his grave for too
long, and is destined to
walk the Earth until Jeff dies. Each episode features Marty helping Jeff
to solve crimes, while he
often uses his ghostly powers
to save the lives of Jeff and Jeannie.
Tom Baker co-stars as Wyvern,
Marty's mentor in the spirit world, whose job it is to 'tend to lost sheep'
who have been
bound to the world of the
living. He helps Marty to adjust to being dead, by showing him to do do
things such as make
contact with physical objects,
change his physical appearance and levitate objects. Although Tom Baker
is officially
billed as a co-star, there
is no doubt who is the true star of this show, and 'Randall & Hopkirk
(deceased) would be a
lesser show without him.
Wyvern appears in all but the first episode.
The
verdict: Many critics are not very impressed by this BBC remake,
but it is a highly enjoyable series with a much
more interesting premise
than most detective shows. The combination of humour, action and drama
makes it well worth
watching. The two leads,
Reeves and Mortimer, take a few episodes to get in their roles, but needless
to say Tom Baker
is brilliant as Wyvern,
a character that was created specificially for the remake. Some of the
episodes pay homage to the
original series, while the
BBC series features cameos by other well-known British actors such as Hugh
Laurie, David
Tennant, Derek Jacobi and
Mark Gatiss (who was also one of the writers of the show). Only 13 episodes
were made over
two seasons, compared with
the 26 episodes of the original ITV series.
|
|
