'Caving' in another TV detective series

Joe Duxbury

Member
Did any of you see the 'Rebus' episode that was on ITV3 on Saturday 23rd? (It may have been shown before somewhere, but the Saturday showing was what I saw).
A team of blokes who had been cavers at university was being bumped off, one by one.
Inspector Rebus' opinion: 'There's something not quite right about caving.'
You might be right there, Jimmy.

His succinct description of the caving ethos was: 'Let's burrow (actually, it sounded more like 'barrow'. Perhaps he couldn't read the autocue properly) under the ground as far as we can go. And then ... climb back up again.'
Yes. So?

But it's good to see caving appearing in mainstream TV drama, without any accompanying hysteria.
 

gus horsley

New member
They were being bumped off because they were so exuberant at finding 20ft of previously unentered squalid crawl that they started singing inappropriate songs in the car and weren't paying attention when they ran over somebody's little kiddie but seeing as they didn't quite kill her they decided to bury her alive in an abandoned dig in a shakehole as they needed to get to the pub before closing time and couldn't be bothered with the hassle of calling the local cops.  I'm not sure if the last bit's exactly accurate but that was my interpretation of it.  It's also probably the longest sentence I've ever written with no punctuation.
 

graham

New member
gus horsley said:
They were being bumped off because they were so exuberant at finding 20ft of previously unentered squalid crawl that they started singing inappropriate songs in the car and weren't paying attention when they ran over somebody's little kiddie but seeing as they didn't quite kill her they decided to bury her alive in an abandoned dig in a shakehole as they needed to get to the pub before closing time and couldn't be bothered with the hassle of calling the local cops.  I'm not sure if the last bit's exactly accurate but that was my interpretation of it.  It's also probably the longest sentence I've ever written with no punctuation.

So why did anyone have a problem with them?  :confused:
 

menacer

Active member
graham said:
gus horsley said:
They were being bumped off because they were so exuberant at finding 20ft of previously unentered squalid crawl that they started singing inappropriate songs in the car and weren't paying attention when they ran over somebody's little kiddie but seeing as they didn't quite kill her they decided to bury her alive in an abandoned dig in a shakehole as they needed to get to the pub before closing time and couldn't be bothered with the hassle of calling the local cops.  I'm not sure if the last bit's exactly accurate but that was my interpretation of it.  It's also probably the longest sentence I've ever written with no punctuation.

So why did anyone have a problem with them?  :confused:

Because you dont go around filling in other peoples digs willy nilly*...its outrageous.. ::)




*.unless your PDCMG
 

graham

New member
Does anyone know whether the script was based on a book, as so many of these things are? The wife collects caving fiction & if it is I'd like to find her a copy.
 

langcliffe

Well-known member
graham said:
Does anyone know whether the script was based on a book, as so many of these things are? The wife collects caving fiction & if it is I'd like to find her a copy.

This particular episode was called "The First Stone", and unlike the other thirteen episodes was not based on a novel.
 

graham

New member
langcliffe said:
graham said:
Does anyone know whether the script was based on a book, as so many of these things are? The wife collects caving fiction & if it is I'd like to find her a copy.

This particular episode was called "The First Stone", and unlike the other thirteen episodes was not based on a novel.
Typical! Thanks langcliffe.
 

robjones

New member
Has Mrs.Graham got 'Shibumi' by Treveylan (spelling a bit dodgy)? Winch exploration of a Pyrenean pot plays a major part in this 1970s spy novel. The only non-childens' caving novel I've encountered.
 

graham

New member
She has, yes. There are actually quite a few out there.

Try Styx by Christopher Hyde for bonkers caving or

The Plume of Smoke by Ed Morris, homicidal again, but a better story.
 

gus horsley

New member
I saw another of the Rebus series the other night and must have paid too much attention because at the beginning they showed Rebus and his sidekick looking over a 5ft high wall where a bloke had fallen to his death and at the end of the episode this woman confessed to killing him but it was an accident.  How can you accidentally fall over a wall like that?  I think she was lying but Rebus didn't pick up on it.
 

in cumbria?

Active member
There was an episode of Hetty Wainthropp Investigates which involved a bit of a conflam between some cavers who said a university caving club had de-rigged their ropes whilst they were still underground - the university club counter-claiming that they had a permit and the marooned club didn't and so that they were not at fault. Twenty minutes of sleuthing later, it turned out that the university club was not actually a 'bona-fide' club as they were in fact a from polytechnic, which invalidated the permit they had got from the controller of the small caving area in which they had been marooned. Well, the controller of the small caving area was rather piqued as you could imagine. He jumped up and down and shouted a lot; "Mein Gott" he said, along with "achtung, donner und blitzen, ze caving is for you Tommy soon to be over".
There was some mild confusion when Hettie got side-tracked by the inevitable cordura vs PVC debate, which whilst true to the original novella, did detract slightly from the overall narrative of the programme.
In conclusion: Better than the Poirot de-rigs the SC3, but not as rewarding as the Z Cars episode in which Jock Weir (admirably played by Joseph Brady) helped in trying to stabilise the third choke in Aggy.
 

andys

Well-known member
Did no-one see that amazing episode of Wycliffe where a body was found in the depths of Wheal Clamp? To cut a long story short, it turns out our hero was once an expedition caver (I think they went to Devon) but lost his bottle so joined the boys in blue on the rebound. DI Lane and DC Potter are persuaded to abseil down the shaft to investigate but become trapped when a man-engine rod detaches itself and crashes down blocking the exit. Kersey quickly realises that the picnic hamper they've taken down with them won't last too long, so the Cheif Super gets the nearest caving group to extend one of their digs in their direction from its current end just west of Priddy. However, this is clearly going to take more than a  few minutes - and critically the episode is more more than half way through. But Wycliffe comes to the rescue by remembering an old mine he played in as a child and which, he recalls, shows the prices same minerology as Wheal Clamp meaning that they must be connected. Donning the gear he abandoned many years earlier - and showing no surpise that his light still worked - he single-handedly digs through the collapse between the two mines and thus frees his colleagues. Oh - forgot - the body turned out to be a sheep.
 
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