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Harry Wild Investigates begins with a murder… like most detective drama episodes, this one seeing a man practicing what could be some sort of satanic ritual on a body?
But before we get to that, the screener I saw just lists this as “Harry Wild“, not “Harry Wild Investigates“, so I’m not sure which is the correct title exactly. Like a few series that crop up on Channel 5 from time to time, it’s been aired before elsewhere, this one on Acorn TV almost a year ago. Similarly, The Canterville Ghost was shown on a US channel 15 months before the UK airing, despite it being full of British actors!
Either way, Jane Seymour still looks incredible at 72, but she’s retiring from her lecturing course, by declaring that if her students think she was hard on them, it’s because they’re “a bunch of little shits“. Hmm…. will that make the grade at 8pm on a Saturday?
In fact, the word is thrown in a few times (along with references to narcoticts and vibrators), which would stop it getting shown mid-afternoon, quite possibly, as such detective shows often litter the repeat schedules when there’s nothing else to put out. And yes, Harry Wild is declaring that on retirement, she’ll take up gardening, sort the attic out, and… start a detective agency.
But before that, she has time for a drunken snog with one of her now ex-colleagues, the lucky thing.
After all, Ms Seymour has been in the acting game for some time, my first vision of her being in the first James Bond film I saw, Live And Let Die, which came out so long ago in 1973, when I was just one year old!
Retirement brings on new challenges, such as trying to fill your day. Like all of us, we think there’s a great novel inside us, but then daytime wine drinking and TV take hold, instead.
And plans change when cocky lad Fergus Reid (Rohan Nedd) steals her bag after pushing her over, while out and about, and because reasons, a gentle shove results in her coming to stay with her son, Charlie (Kevin Ryan), his family for a while.
But before long, she gets an idea to start the detective agency after reading novels about such things, but can she do the police’s job for them? After all, the man killed at the start had a very dodgy past, we learn, so there must be oodles of suspects!
It does get a bit daft when she chances across Fergus again, and even though I watched this, I still wasn’t 100% sure whether case with the murdered man at the start was fully resolved. I don’t think it was? Will it stray into later episodes? It doesn’t feel like the best-written drama, or I could’ve suffered a brief bout of ennui during the middle section.
Either way, Harry Wild Investigates is a bit dodgy for another subplot when a man’s wife goes missing, and Harry commits an offence of impersonating a police officer by going to speak to her husband. For all of Lancashire Police’s faults, I doubt even they would try such a thing regarding the recent case of Nicola Bulley.
At least she’s a woman after my own heart, complaining about anyone who takes delight in pointing out the bad spelling, grammar and lack of punctuation in the writings of others!
I may watch a second episode of this. It’s very undemanding stuff, but isn’t something I think I could stick with for an entire series. Then again, Jane Seymour is such a GILF!
Thanks to Channel 5 for the screener.
Harry Wild Investigates begins tonight on Channel 5 at 8pm, and airs weekly on Saturdays. It can be bought on DVD, but bear in mind, this is an import from Australia as it’s not yet released in the UK. Then again, it’s Region 2, so it will still work in any UK DVD player.
If you miss it, you can watch the each episode on My5 after transmission.
Check out the trailer below:
Series Directors: Rob Burke, Ronan Burke, Robert Quinn
Producer: Michael Queen
Writers: Jo Spain, David Logan
Creator: David Logan
Music: Ray Harman
Cast:
Harry Wild: Jane Seymour
Charlie Wild: Kevin Ryan
Glenn Talbot: Paul Tylak
Fergus Reid: Rohan Nedd
Ray Tiernan: Stuart Graham
Orla Wild: Amy Huberman
Lola Wild: Rose O’Neill
June: Esosa Ighodaro
Vivian Mitchell-Tiernan: Ciara O’Callaghan
Liberty Reid: Rosa Willow Lee
Vicky Boyle: Danielle Ryan
Jordan MacDonald: Anthony Delaney
Professor Graham Gray: Morgan C Jones
Malky Reid: Shane Lynch
Ringo Rogers: Dylan Kelly
Blue Ronnie: Eric Higgins
Happy the Shark: Liam Carney
Robin Whitney: Adam Fergus
Zoe McCann: Isabelle Connolly
Billy Lund: Peter Claffey
Colin Fountain: Jim Roche
Granny Susan Henderson: Fiona York
Max Carolan:Cal Kenealy
Ross Duffy: Matt Ryan
John O’Toole: Michael Patric
Red Mask: Paul Reid
Jasper Henderson: Stephen Hogan
Beryl Lane: Muireann Ryan
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.