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2/10
Ignominious End For Mr.Hedges
ShadeGrenade18 November 2007
Warning: Spoilers
Fed up at being unemployed, Hedges takes a job at an escort agency. His first client is the lovely Elinor, wife of German businessman Ernst. Tired of being ignored, Elinor wishes to make her husband jealous, hence she pretends to flirt with the ex-schoolteacher.

At a posh restaurant, they get better acquainted. Ernst arrives in an angry mood. To complicate matters further still, Penny is there too...

An unusual episode this; not one 'Gang' member appears, instead John Esmonde and Bob Larbey's script focuses entirely on Bernard and Penny Hedges. Nothing wrong with that, but the plot is an inversion of 'Leave It To Me, Darling'. Instead of Bernard suspecting his wife of going on the game, Penny thinks that of her husband. The almost total absence of humour leads one to suspect the script of an entirely different series has somehow strayed into the wrong show.

The lovely Wanda Ventham had recently been seen as 'Colonel Virginia Lake' in Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's cult sci-fi show 'U.F.O'.

One wonders whether this episode, and the earlier 'Fenn Streets' to feature Hedges were intended as a try-out for a proposed second spin-off, one in which he landed a new job each week, rather like Charlie Drake in 'The Worker'. In the final event, this was to be the last time John Alderton played him, making this a dismal exit for the character. He deserved a better send-off.
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3/10
Strangte, alternate universe episode
wwgrayii5 April 2012
Jobless former schoolmaster Bernard Hedges takes a job as an escort (no hanky-panky, just go on a platonic date, collect ten pounds and a free meal in a post restaurant) in order to make ends meet, causing a bit of strain in his relationship with his wife Penny.

Unfortunately, this was the last appearance for John Alderton as Bernard Hedges, and it's not a very satisfying wrap-up for the character. It's an odd episode in several ways. None of the "gang" appears. Bernard and Penny get a visit from their old friend Henry (who gives them the escort service contact). Henry is clearly written as a recurring character with whom the audience is already familiar (Bernard mentions that he and Penny have known him for a long time), but he's never been seen before, either in this series or in "Please, Sir," so his scene is kind of awkward.

In fact, the whole episode us kind of off-kilter: It gives every appearance of being an unused script for another series, or perhaps a pilot for a Bernard Hedges series.
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