User Reviews

Episode 15, "Death in Inner Space" is a slight cut above most entries, set in the isolated château outside Paris of Dr. Charles Hodek (Karel Stepanek, who receives co-star billing with Boris Karloff during the opening credits). Colonel March has already spoken to the Society for Interplanetary Communication, where he is invited to spend a few days with Dr. Hodek, who believes he has received radio waves from Mars during an experiment conceived by Professor Rogel (Christopher Rhodes). Seeking a way to suspend a person's life functions during space travel, Hodek has a volunteer in Philip Rosea (Michael Allan), his wife Annette's secret lover, who dies from a lack of oxygen despite the alarm set up to alert Hodek of any problems. Annette Hodek (Rosalie Crutchley) is immediately suspected by the doctor's lawyer, Paul Lavois (Peter Illing), who also has misgivings about Professor Rogel, who he feels is fleecing the trusting Hodek of funds vital to the experiment. Ewan Roberts as Inspector Ames does not appear in this episode, which, for once, features a genuinely surprising, yet perfectly logical solution.

Wait you've been in touch with who!!!!!!!

Colonel March visits a Professor who's made contact with Mars,

The plot is bonkers, surely more a case for Doctor Who rather than a humble mortal from Scotland Yard.

The actual case itself, which is actually just a locked room mystery is clever, it's a good mystery, it's just a little lost against the noise of contact with Mars.

Despite it being as far fetched as...... it's actually a rather enjoyable mystery, it doesn't hang around for a minute, it's well paced, with some rather nice ideas.

Nicely acted, with a good cast, always nice to see a young Rosalie Crutchley, what a long career she enjoyed.

Zany, good fun, 7/10.

COLONEL MARCH OF Scotland YARD is a TV series that took a while to get going. This detective anthology was presided over by the great Boris Karloff, sporting an eye patch and with a classic debonair attitude, investigating unusual crimes in a sort-of precursor to THE X-FILES.

The first episodes were often slow and sometimes silly, like the one with the kidnapped poodle. However, by the time of DEATH IN INNER SPACE, things seem to have picked up considerably. This is a locked-room murder with a difference: the background of the tale is the search for extraterrestrial life, with lots of that delightfully dated scientific apparatus. The actors give the subject their all and there's plenty of incident to propel the narrative along very nicely.

Colonel March is in Paris to speak at the Annual Convention of the Society for Interplanatary Communication. After the presentation, one of the attendees remarks of March "Such an imagination and grasp of the problem - and for an Englishman, that's remarkable." Dr. Charles Hodek, an imminent expert in "hibernation theory" is also impressed and invites March to visit him at his château. Hodek has built a large pressure chamber to test his suspended animation theories and shows March what he believes to be radio wave communications, heightened by telegraphic power, from another planet. Philip Rosea, the lover of Hodek's wife, Annette, volunteers to be the subject in Hodek's suspended animation test. In spite of an elaborate alarm system, something goes wrong. March and Hodek rush into the chamber and seeing Philip unconscious, Hodek says that he'll have to check his blood pressure. March tells him "I don't think he'll have much blood pressure. He's dead." In the series, March often makes such black humor remarks upon finding a body. Even with all the pseudo scientific mumbo jumbo, the episode is still entertaining.