An update of the 1969 classic series, the remake featured eye-popping special effects but suffered from too many episodes and scenes copied from the original.
5.1
When someone decides they are going to remake a movie or a TV series they are begging for comparisons to the original. That is inevitable. Furthermore, there is an exceptionally fine line that must be walked: one cannot duplicate the original (lest the criticism be, "Why even bother?"), nor can the remake destroy all of the qualities of the original.
In the case of the 2000-2002 BBC series "Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased)", the problem is the latter. The series is a remake of the 1969-70 series produced by ITC starring Kenneth Cope and the late Mike Pratt as the ghost of private investigator Marty Hopkirk and his surviving partner Jeff Randall, respectively. For the new series, the comedy duo of Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer were cast to fill the Cope and Pratt roles. The basic premise (a murdered private detective returns to get his partner to solve the murder) is the only part of the plot from the original that remained intact. Everything else was altered, and not always for the good.
For example, in the original Marty was an insanely jealous and devoted husband to wife Jean. On more than one occasion he had to be reminded that Jean was now his widow, NOT his wife. In the remake, however, Marty’s fatal encounter with an automobile occurs on the day BEFORE his nuptials with Jeannie Hurst. This makes the jealous streak that Marty displays in “Drop Dead” and “Mental Apparition Disorder” appear false and forced. Additionally, the Marty of the remake does not possess the fidelity of the original. In the original’s episode “A Sentimental Journey”, ghost Marty complains to Jeff about having to investigate the happenings in a sleeping car while a woman is undressing. He goes so far as to cover his eyes with his hand to prevent seeing anything. In contrast, the “new” Marty thinks nothing of having sex with a seductress in “A Man of Substance”, but later in the series (in the episode “O Happy Isle”) orders Jeff to kiss Jean so the jealousy Marty feels will cause a scream loud enough to shatter glass. It is hard to accept.
Another major difference between the two is the manner in which Marty learns what he can do as a ghost. In the original’s “But What a Sweet Little Room”, for instance, Marty discovers that he can rattle Jeff’s coffee cup by using “vibrations”. In the remake, however, Marty has a tutor, Mr. Wyvern (played by Tom Baker). The interactions between Marty and Wyvern seem more for comic relief and not-too-subtle foreshadowing (for instance, the scene in “Mental Apparition Disorder” when Wyvern for some reason is teaching Marty how to impersonate someone else, which later leads to Marty impersonating Dr. Lawyer) than integral parts of the series. (Almost as if to confirm this, when BBC America aired the series and edited the episodes to allow for more time for commercials, a number of scenes with Wyvern were cut – and hardly missed.) In the first two episodes of the second season, Wyvern appears for a TOTAL of less than five minutes, confirming that this role was not expanded enough.
One positive difference, however, lay in the special effects. In 1969, an effect known as “Pepper’s ghost” was used to make Marty appear to pass through walls. For the disappearance, the other actors had to hold their position while Cope walked off set. Items moved by the ghost were moved by wires – and very poorly hidden wires at that. (One unintentionally funny moment in the original is in “All Work and No Pay”, when Jeff says there are “no wires” to account for the items that flew around Jean’s apartment, yet in the scene when the furniture is moving the wires are obvious.) The remake had the advantage of computer technology, and this was used to maximum effect. Special effects reportedly cost £1 million per episode, but they were so exceptional they were worth every penny. Marty would dissolve into a vapor or become an electrical charge in a phone line. One particular enjoyable effect was in “Whatever Possessed You”, when Marty, after being worked over by another specter, collapses on the floor into a pile of protoplasm.
For me, the worst problem with the remake was its blatant stealing of ideas from the original series without as much as a nod of gratitude or acknowledgement of the original’s writers. The credits listed the producer and creator as Charlie Higson. No mention was EVER given to Dennis Spooner, the creator of the original series. Some of the similarities could be in the eye of the viewer (for instance, the general theme of “Paranoia” reminds me of the original series’ episode “The Ghost Who Saved the Bank at Monte Carlo”: set in a hotel, where three different groups of people are all chasing after a book, with the only difference being that no one died in “The Ghost Who Saved…” while the body count was very high in “Paranoia”). Other episodes or scenes, however, are too obvious: the “ancient curse” from “My Late Lamented Friend and Partner” that shows up – word for word -- in “Drop Dead”, the estrangement between Marty and Jeff’s relationship in “It’s Supposed to Be Thicker Than Water” is also in “Two Can Play at that Game”, the poker scene from “The Trouble with Women” is duplicated in “The Glorious Butranekh”, and Jeff momentarily dying in “The Smile Behind the Veil” revisited in “A Blast From the Past.”
When the show relied on ORIGINAL ideas, however, it could be stellar. The second season featured five excellent episodes that relied on unique plots instead of rehashing scenarios from the original series. “Painkillers” is the highlight of the entire series. “The Best Years of Your Death” from the first season showed the promise the series could have fulfilled had it spent more time standing on its own feet. Vic Reeves also turned in a superlative dual performance as Marty and Marty’s father Larry in “A Blast from the Past”.
A combination of the expense of the special effects and poor ratings killed the remake after 13 episodes, half of the series run of the original show. It would have been interesting to see if the series could have continued to improve with original scripts instead of retreads of the first version.
moreless
