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#katy's part here is fairly negligible at a glance‚ but this is a fascinating episode of SSTF. I've found this first series deeply uneven so
mariocki
·
2 years
Text
Katy Manning - in her first ever screen role, and credited as Katie - makes awful coffee and has a good nose at some industrial action, in Softly Softly: Task Force: Standing Orders (1.8, BBC, 1970)
#fave spotting
#katy manning
#jo grant
#softly softly: task force
#doctor who
#classic doctor who
#standing orders
#alan plater
#bbc
#the awful coffee thing is referenced several times in dialogue for some reason‚ it isn't just me being a dick
#katy's part here is fairly negligible at a glance‚ but this is a fascinating episode of SSTF. I've found this first series deeply uneven so
#far‚ beginning with a couple of brilliant‚ razor sharp scripts from series creator Elwyn Jones‚ but followed by a few really duff
#eps by Robert Barr‚ who seems to have seized the procedural aspect of the series and clung to it so his episodes depict fairly dull
#routine work for the characters. my heart jumped‚ then‚ when the opening credits for this episode announced Alan Plater as the writer
#Plater was truly one of our greatest screenwriters and deserves to be mentioned alongside Rosenthal and Potter (but rarely is‚ perhaps
#because he contributed so much to genre work or bc he did so much freelance for other series like this‚ rather than concentrating on his
#own original creations all the time). this is well before Beiderbecke made his name‚ but he was already an established writer and so
#presumably well known for the socialist views that inform much of his work (even freelancing). doubly surprising then‚ considering this
#episode follows on immediately from 1.7 The Aggro Boy‚ an Allan Prior script that's interesting as a document on attitudes and approaches
#to football hooliganism in 1970‚ but which has a highly Conservative bent and contains dialogue which seems to support increased powers of
#policing‚ the return of national service‚ and a general despair with 'modern society'. Prior's script couldn't be further from Plater's
#beliefs‚ but to his credit this episode (concerning labour disputes and unofficial strikes) does its damndest to remain neutral (mostly
#through the figure of Norman Bowler's Insp Hawkins who will not be drawn into taking sides). i suppose it's testament to Plater's
#professionalism; he was after all a guest writer on a mildly conservative cop show‚ not to mention writing for the BBC (always at pains to
#appear politically neutral). his characters are varied‚ with good and bad on both sides of the debate; there are bad managers and trouble
#makers on the picket‚ as well as sympathetic bosses and earnest union men. if Plater does allow his leftwing bias to show (and it's only
#briefly) it's in scenes where Hawkins is goaded by his superiors into betraying his own sympathies: something he explicitly refuses to do
#so where does Katy come in? what does her character represent? if anything i think she represents the disinterested masses
#the idle onlookers; her secretary character is not directly involved in the shop disputes and spends most of the episode watching the men
#from the window with half curiosity and half boredom. and she does it superbly!
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