This is a very strange episode from BEASTS which in some ways indicates why it's not very well remembered . Quite often when Buddy Boy is discussed a lot of people describe it as " The episode where a porn cinema is haunted by the ghost of a dolphin " but this is very much misleading . A better description of the premise would be " A drama where the resolution is left to the interpretation of the viewer " . In short if you're expecting ghostly goings on and startle moments then you're going to be disappointed . Perhaps this commentator should warn you that not much happens at all and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing
Everything about this episode can be summed up by Martin Shaw who would have been a totally unknown actor in 1976 , two years before he became a household name in THE PROFESSIONALS . I have to admit that whilst watching Buddy Boy I still couldn't get The Klansmen episode of THE PROFESSIONALS out of my head and if you've seen that spectacular episode of car crash TV then you'll understand where I'm coming from . His character in BEASTS isn't entirely poles apart from Ray Doyle and I have to admit he's not unimpressive as rough diamond Dave and manages to carry the story
With hindsight the script by Nigel Kneale also sums up the strengths and weaknesses of BEASTS . It's portent intelligent drama for the most part but rather talkative too with a resolution that is open to interpretation - was the fate of a character caused by the ghost of a dead dolphin or is there a much more mundane reason for it happening? I'd certainly go for the mundane reasoning which means whilst this episode is watchable there's no supernatural element to it and is slightly disappointing after the brilliant horror story with the rats