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The year is 1966 and the football World Cup has come to England. With the USSR due to play at Roker Park and the fear of the 'Reds Under the Bed' exemplified by the upcoming Polaris submarine landing at the nearby Jarrow docks, tensions are running high. CND protesters, lead by radical students from Durham University, are the last thing the police need when the world media is on their doorstep awaiting the upcoming football match. Gently and Bacchus investigate the murder of a well know Lefty academic, found dead in the docks post a CND rally. This takes them onto the Durham University campus - an ancient temple of learning struggling to come to terms with the novel influx of students from the working class and brash, radical, academics. Sexual and Social rebellion is everywhere in the air and to the young and optimistic these forces seem inevitable and unstoppable. Bacchus is horrified yet fascinated by the promiscuity on display. Gently, a war veteran, more shrewdly recognises that ... Written by
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Quotes
[
Gently and Bacchus are going through the pockets of a murder victim. Bacchus pulls out a ball of tinfoil with some brown lumps inside]
George Gently:
Is that what I think it is?
John Bacchus:
Yes. Cannabis resin. It's a bit late to charge him with possession now, isn't it.
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George Gently is from several perspectives one of the best of the British detectives series, but seeing Warren Clarke immediately arouses suspicions he will be the culprit, first because of his prominence, and second because he appears to enjoy playing villains when he isn't playing detectives himself. The shows are well-plotted and acted, and, since I was in college myself at this time, the '60s atmosphere, while a bit overdone, is nevertheless very well done, except, I noticed, for the Venetian blinds. And although the topics are handled well, their anachronism is still a bit too obvious, if not in something like the Irene Huss class. This episode reflects on the observation that love, like it or not, infrequently breeds war, as much as, on feminism and homosexuality. But what sets this series apart from many others is that not everything which happens is made into a smoking gun or a morality play. Sgt Bacchus' father-in-law is inexplicably replaced, and I think could just as well have been omitted, or retired, etc. Myanna Buring is a great vamp, as small girls often are, and whom I fully expected John to fall for, reminding me she did nude modeling at that age, if I'm not mistaken.