First viewed : 24 July 1994
I'm surprised this didn't begin a little earlier. Wycliffe was a detective series on ITV, set in Cornwall and based on a series of novels by W J Burley. Apart from a pilot episode broadcast in 1993, I was in on this from the start.
Wycliffe, a calm thoughtful detective was played by Jack Shepherd, possibly due to his performance as John Stalker in Stalker a few years earlier. His regular cohorts were bluff Falklands vet DI Doug Kersey ( Jimmy Yuill ) who relied on intuition and the cooler, more analytical DI Lucy Lane ( the lovely Helen Masters ). As with other popular series, the source novels were eventually exhausted and original scripts had to be produced. The storylines were usually resolved within one episode. The production values were high with the series making use of the Cornish landscape in much the way Bergerac used Jersey.
I think I saw all the first series and watched it fairly regularly after that. After the fourth season there was a Christmas special with the chief villain played by Leslie Grantham using both his expressions.It ended with Wycliffe killing him but being shot in the process.
There was a short fifth season but I'm not sure I watched beyond the first episode. The series ended in 1998 when Shepherd quit in protest at Yuill not being allowed to return after a bout of meningitis.
The bits I recall are :
- A girl getting shot whilst bonking with Bill Nighy
- Local actress Susan Penhaligon appearing and suddenly looking much older
- A storyline where a local family descended from the Normans has murdered a black man who impregnated the simple-minded heir.
- One where Nigel Terry tries to take the rap for a murder actually committed by his son
- The team are helped by a criminal psychologist played by John Shrapnel. Wycliffe and Lane are very open to his expertise but Kersey is rightly suspicious
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