Originally screened in 1972 as part of the BBCs Drama Playhouse series 'The Incredible Robert Baldick' marked the return to the BBC of Dalek creator
Terry Nation after some 7 years working for the rival ITV network. Drama Playhouse was a series of one off pilots created to test the water for a possible series, it didn't happen here which is a real shame.
Robert Hardy plays the eponymous hero, an occult detective who travels around in a lavish, bulletproof locomotive called 'The Tsar'. He, along with his assistants Thomas and Caleb (
Julian Holloway and a magnificently bewhiskered
John Rhys-Davies) is called in by the local bigwigs (
James Cossins &
Reginald Marsh) to investigate the latest in a series of brutal deaths at a desolate abbey.
There are definite shades of
Nigel Kneale in the story, of ancient horror inhabiting the stones of a place and the gothic glory of Hammer Studios is definitely brought to mind. Hardy and the rest of the cast are all in fine form and the script is a solid and thoroughly enjoyable slice of gothic sci-fi of the sort that Doctor Who would explore to great effect a few years later under
Philip Hinchcliffe's guidance, indeed Hardy's character is called Doctor by his assistants throughout. As I said, a real shame this never made it to series but it's a great little taste of what might have been.
Enjoy.
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Thank you for a great find. I thought Mr. Nation was trying a bit too hard to channel Nigel Kneale, though he lacks Kneale's talent of conveying something genuinely horrific and inhuman underlying reality. However, I would have loved this to be a series and 1972 was certainly a zeitgeisty time to do it.
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