the last of the b&w d4s

Last week, I managed to - I am not even sure what to call it - crack? the top of the fingernail of the middle finger of my left hand. It's not painful, it's not even that horrible to look at, it's just another one of those stupid unintelligent design elements of humanity that inconvenience me for what seems like forever while I try to ensure that the situation doesn't worsen. In this case, I have a bandaid on my finger and that makes typing slightly more difficult than it might otherwise be. Slightly. If it was hugely, that would also make a difference. It has a hugeness of slightitude. 

In the last few days also I have been taking it easy as I was sick earlier in the week and now I'm a lot better and it's mainly fine. I watched the last few black and white episodes of D4 I had up my sleeve. It's been mainly good, though some of them (as mentioned previously) sucked. Just going to wrap them up here. 

This one, 27 February 1974's 'All for One', features Julieanne Newbould in what IMDB seems to be suggesting is her first TV appearance. In the last six months or so of D4 they tried a new opening format, where instead of going straight into the opening credits they gave us a tiny taster of the story with the title imposed over the top:

This episode focuses on three bad teens and one (Carol Lane, played by JN) who gets mixed up with them to her regret. Ultimately I'd have to say that Carol is a bit of a wooden character, through no fault of JN's, but because the mores of 1974 have to make too much of a intricacies of did she deserve to be raped? Also, like too many Crawfords storylines, she gets over this whole incident way too quickly, like a bout of food poisoning or seeing someone in a MAGA cap. But it's still a good episode. Hats off to Alan Wilson, Paul Young and Clare Balmford, who seems to have given up acting entirely in the early 80s and instead illustrated a couple of children's books and then disappeared from the public eye. Or so the internet believes, anyway. 

I wonder what happened to her.

This is an interesting one, called 'Parable', broadcast the following month (18 March). Jon Finlayson is Wayne Fraser, a petty criminal with no little depth. Fraser (funny that they'd use the name of the leader of the opposition although I suppose Malcolm Fraser was just a minister when they made this in '73) assaults a prostitute (played by Lesley Baker, later well-known in Neighbours) to steal her money and is chased off by a naive, almost childlike, godbotherer called Simon Barrett (John Orcsik, very clearly a star-in-the-making). Instead of report Fraser to the police, Barrett tries to reform him. Fraser instead offends again - he needs $500 fast. This time he bashes a girl called Mary (played by Josephine Knur, who was soon to cap off a short TV career with the role of Sally Pickles in the unbelievably short-lived soap The Unisexers). 

Fraser is gay, a fact revealed to no-one and not even slightly hinted at in the show until the police mention it probably about half-way through the episode. This becomes crucial to the plot and perhaps there was a dramaturgical reason why it was hidden from us but it comes off seeming like an afterthought. 

Simon finds Wayne a place to hide, and this is really interesting - I'd love to know where on earth it is. Big wasteland area, factories in the distance, railway line, concrete bunkers of some sort - !

Spoiler: Wayne suddenly becomes drunkenly attracted to Simon, who kills him. 

What surprises me about this is that Simon is then sentenced for manslaughter. Wasn't there a law in Victoria until a few years ago that any man could kill another man who he thought was cracking on to him? There was some assumption in there that the affront inherent in such an act would be enough to engender that sort of overreaction in any straight man. Well, no-one told Simon. 

There are three more b&w episodes after this one. The last of them, 'The Tribunal', is out of its mind. Another, 'Baxter's Son', has amazing paisley wallpaper.