Armchair Thriller 6: Fear Of God

I know I'm nearly a month late posting this review, but its birth has been a long and painful one. It's not often I'm stuck for words writing a review, but this one has been a real stinker. I like to pad out a review with plenty of background information normally, but finding decent information about this series has been a struggle. Thank goodness for Google, I say.

I'm repeating much of the material between The Girl Who Walked Quickly and Fear Of God, purely because of the lack of decent information I've been able to find about the series. If this was Brian Clemens' Thriller series for ATV, there would be no problem, but this is Thames Television's 1978/80 series.

Armchair Thriller was a primetime serial strand shown by the ITV network from February 1978, produced by Andrew Brown and Jacqueline Davis and script edited by Robert Banks Stewart, who would go on to create Bergerac for the BBC. A twice-weekly slot (Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8.30pm), the series used the classic cliffhanger format to keep viewers on the edges of their seats and regularly attracted audiences of 15 million. In spite of the success of the first series, there was a two year gap between the first and second series. The second series was produced by Brenda Ennis and script-edited by Doctor Who maestro Robert Holmes.

The show has a wonderfully creepy and atmospheric animated title sequence with a theme by Andy McKay of Roxy Music. Combined with a special Thames logo employed just for the show, it makes for a very memorable start to the show.

Fear Of God came from the second series, shown in 1980 (same days, but slightly earlier at 8pm). Adapted from a novel by Derry Quinn by Italian Job scribe Troy Kennedy Martin and directed by Man In A Suitcase helmer Robert Tronson, it stars Bryan Marshall as a journalist who sees a young woman fall to her death past his window. He finds her diary in the attic upstairs, but the diary is also being sought by a sinister cult, the Regiment of God as it is the only connection between the dead girl and their disturbing experiments. Watch out in this one for New Tricks Alun Armstrong in one of the roles. Of the two stories, this is the less engaging for the sake of using that tired 1960s plot device of the "sound weapon" - usually a case of cue funny noise on the soundtrack and the hero writhing around on the floor with his knuckles pressed to his temples and his eyes crossed.

The shows are presented in their original 4:3 aspect ratio. Made in the standard 1970s/1980s way - studio videotape and location 16mm filming, the series has that soft look of vintage television. Made in the days before Nicam Stereo, the show has a basic mono soundtrack.