Acting
An anthology series produced by Thames Television, comprised of short mystery, suspense or crime adaptations featuring, as the title suggests, detectives who were literary contemporaries of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.
Sergeant Cork is a British detective television series which first aired between 1963 and 1968 on ITV. It was a police procedural show that followed the efforts of two police officers and their battle against crime in Victorian London. In all 66 hour-long episodes were aired during the five-year run, although the last episode was not broadcast until January 1968, 16 months after the others. Journalist Tom Sutcliffe has credited it as a first example of the use of the Victorian-era policeman in a television crime series. A 1969 review in The Age opined that rather than suspense, the strengths of the series were its "excellent period settings and wonderfully thick pea-soupers" which "add up to splendid evocative stuff", as well as the performance of star John Barrie. At no time during the whole series is Sergeant Cork's first name given.
A hapless but caring teacher tries to control his class of unruly kids. The teacher sees much good and potential in his pupils, much to the dismay of his fellow teachers who have lost hope in these kids.
Swizzlewick was a twice weekly 1964 BBC comedy drama series about the day-to-day events of a local council in a fictional Midlands town. The writers included David Turner who created the series. This series is principally remembered as an early target of 'Clean Up TV' campaigner Mary Whitehouse. An episode in August 1964 featured Mrs Smallgood, a parody of her, who was depicted launching a "Freedom from Sex" campaign with a friend. A scene with a prostitute was cut from another episode of the series, after a television studio worker leaked an advance copy of the script to her. She was told "It's too late to re-shoot.", and answered "I don't want re-shooting, I want cuts." She delivered a letter of complaint in person to the Postmaster General of the United Kingdom, who appears to have passed the matter on to the BBC, and the scene Mrs Whitehouse found offensive was cut. Turner resigned from the series.
The Adventures of Don Quick is a science fiction comedy television series broadcast from October–December 1970, on ITV. Starring Ian Hendry and Ronald Lacey, six 50 minute episodes were made, shown in a 60 minute time slot. Based on the characters of Don Quixote, astronaut Captain Don Quick and Sergeant Sam Czopanser (i.e. "Sancho Panza") are members of the Intergalactic Maintenance Squad. On each planet they visit, Quick attempts to right imaginary wrongs, often upsetting the inhabitants of whatever society he's in. As of 2008, only the first episode exists, the other five are now missing. A technologically impressive 30 foot model spaceship was built in the studio for the series. However the first three episodes in a primetime slot failed to draw the required ratings so the last three were in a much later slot before the show was cancelled.
The TARDIS arrives on the unnamed planet of the Gonds, who are ruled and taught in a form of self-perpetuating slavery by the alien Krotons — crystalline beings whose ship, the Dynatrope, crash-landed there thousands of years earlier after being damaged in a space battle. The Krotons are in suspended animation, in a crystalline slurry form, awaiting a time when they can be reconstituted by absorption of mental energy. Periodically, the two most brilliant Gond students are received into the Dynatrope, nominally to become "companions of the Krotons", but in truth to have their mental energy drained, after which they are killed.
A henpecked trade union leader tries to bully and then bribe a vulnerable housing manager into letting him jump the queue and have a new council flat.