Samuel's Blog

Mary Jo Randle and other actors and stray television show ideas and thoughts

February 22nd, 2024 at 04:24pm

Of late I have been going through some of the older episodes of The Bill which I was too young to really see or appreciate when they first aired and which I haven’t already watched. I’m currently working my way, slowly, through the mid-90s. I am also working my way through Inspector Morse. I’d like to say that I’m rewatching Inspector Morse as I was of the belief that I had seen just about every episode, but the more I watch, the more I realise I haven’t seen most of them (either that, or they’re secretly filming new episodes and adding them to my DVD collection when I’m not looking), so in many ways I am actually watching most episodes of Inspector Morse for the first time.

The episode I watched most recently on the weekend was the 1990 episode “Driven To Distraction” and I was quite delighted when the familiar name of Mary Jo Randle came up in the opening titles. As I tend to do when a familiar name pops up in the opening titles of a detective show, I try to work out what role they will play before they appear on screen in person. In Mary Jo Randle’s case, I was expecting her to either be the mother or sister of the murder victim. But to my surprise and even greater delight, her first appearance in the episode was in a CID briefing listening to Chief Inspector Morse outlining the case, before effectively taking over the briefing. She was playing a Detective Sergeant on secondment from CID Training School.

This was particularly delightful because in the episodes of The Bill I’m currently working through, Mary Jo Randle plays Detective Sergeant Jo Morgan, and quite frankly her appearance in Inspector Morse could almost have been exactly the same character with the same mannerisms, personality traits, and detecting style. DS Morgan on secondment from Sun Hill to Thames Valley!

Mary Jo Randle as DS Jo Morgan in The Bill (image credit: ITV / Fremantle Media)

Of course the timeline doesn’t quite work. This episode of Morse was in 1990 and Jo Morgan was a character in The Bill from 1993 to 1995 until she (do we need a spoiler alert for something which happened 29 years ago?) took a bullet meant for then-WPC June Ackland. So I suppose she really would have preferred to stay in Thames Valley with Morse and Lewis.

I had a dream once that I was working for Chief Superintendent Foyle from Foyle’s War but was under investigation by my high school librarian and so got banished to Detective Inspector Frost’s office in A Touch Of Frost, and Frost told me not to worry about it because the worst they could do to me was transfer me to Sun Hill who were about due for another station explosion, before he demanded another cup of tea!

On the subject of actors playing almost the same character in various shows (and Richard Belzer actually playing the same character in far too many shows to count, doesn’t count), I recently finished re-watching Stargate Universe where Louis Ferreira played Colonel Young, and I have just started watching Motive, a Canadian murder-mystery show where he played Detective Oscar Vega. I have only watched the first episode so far, but it was almost Colonel Young Helps Solve A Murder. I’m sure Detective Vega will develop as a character, but at least for a moment it’s nice to imagine what else Colonel Young might be doing seeing as Stargate Universe was very unfortunately cut short after two seasons, when it deserved at least one more.

I actually have some thoughts on how a Stargate Universe movie could warp up the series, even after all this time, with a tie-in to Stargate Atlantis (which was also cut a season too short and it’s a pity the proposed direct-to-DVD movie to wrap up the loose ends never came to fruition), but I think I’ve prattled on enough for one post here, and that idea can wait for another day. Just like my idea on how to revive The Bill for a short series (hint: Lord Mayor Bob Cryer!).

Samuel

Entry Filed under: Samuel's Dreams,TV/Radio/Media

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