Death To Sister Mary - Series 3 Episode 3, Saturday 15th June 1974 (ITC movie title "Murder Is a One Act Play")

The story...

Penny Stacy is an actress playing "Sister Mary" in a soap opera set in a convent. She has a devoted fan called Charles Rook. Too devoted because at the start of the episode rook assaults one of Penny's co-actors - Mark Fields - telling him to "stay away from Sister Mary". Rook escapes detection for this offence and later sneaks into the studio to visit Penny, telling her he wants to set up a fan club. She is surprised but also quite flattered by his attentions and agrees. She is also surprised that he insists on calling her "Sister Mary" rather than her real name but thinks little of it.

Over time a number of other assaults and "accidents" occur involving others close to Penny, one of them fatal. Penny's on-screen father who had treated "Sister Mary" harshly is slashed badly and ends up in a coma. Meanwhile Rook's fan club plans are coming to fruition. He invites Penny to open the club which even includes a mock-up of the convent set. However he has chilling plans in store for her.. 

Review

For me and some other fans this maintains the excellent start to Series 3. I was therefore surprised to discover that it is one of the five lowest-rated episodes on the Internet Movie Database which draws upon a very wide sample of viewers. We all come to our own conclusions about every episode and I could certainly not say that those more sceptical viewers are "wrong" or that my views on it are "right". However I can outline why this is around the top ten of my favourite Thriller instalments.

Like A Coffin for the Bride there is absolutely no mystery about the identity of the villain. From the teaser onwards it is clear that Charles Rook is trouble but it does not diminish the viewing experience at all. Robert Powell returned in his second villainous role after his appearance in Lady Killer, just as Michael Jayston had made a villainous return in Coffin. Interestingly in all four episodes their roles as villains are evident from the start but the satisfaction is in seeing what they do and how they will be caught. The part of Rook is dramatically different from that of Paul Tanner in Lady Killer however. While Tanner was an attractive, outgoing and charming man Rook is quiet, obsessive but deceptively unthreatening. Both men are killers but Rook may be even more dangerous as he is prepared to eliminate anyone who in his eyes fails to treat "Sister Mary" properly. At the end of this episode Rook has caused death and injury on a scale that makes Paul Tanner seem small fry.

The character of Rook is fascinating. TV fans do have their share of obsessives, especially soap operas like Saints And Sinners. One hears of fans unable to distinguish between character and actor and yet this is a rare example of a drama focusing on this phenomenon. Most of the time such confused viewers are ultimately harmless and well-meaning but there are instances of actors being attacked by irate viewers mixing them up with their characters and Rook simply takes that sort of mindset to a disturbing conclusion. Rook seems incapable of seeing Penny as anything other than "Sister Mary". He prefers her in her "real clothes" (i.e. nun's habit), cannot see how a nun can have a fiancé and is amazed when she is reluctant to accept a Bible as a gift. All these things are harmless enough but his attacks on those he thinks treat her badly or block his route to her are anything but. Throughout all this Rook sees himself sincerely as a protector of Sister Mary - a dangerous protector. 

Robert Powell gives an excellent performance as this most distinctive villain. It is hard not to feel some sympathy for Rook who clearly has serious psychological problems but these are buried beneath the surface of an odd, maybe irritating but ostensibly innocuous persona. It can be argued that all the same Rook's intrusive behaviour, visiting Penny not only at the studio but at her home, may have aroused some concern. Penny herself admits though that actors can find such appreciation, even if it is a little over-enthusiastic, too flattering to reject. 

Maybe more surprising is that the cast and the police don't dig deeper into the series of accidents which seem to have coincided with his arrival on the scene and this apparent lack of realism seems to lie at the heart of negative reviews from other viewers. Very probably in real life the pieces would have been put together much earlier and Rook prevented from his worst offences. However Thriller and indeed most TV drama - especially murder-mysteries - is not intended to be so realistic. Sometimes realism makes for dull drama and often even the best productions play fast and loose with realism for the sake of a great story and great drama. Indeed some of the most popular episodes in Thriller have elements that are unrealistic or at least highly unlikely. Often it's not the lack of realism that lies at the root of the negative reviews but a more general lack of engagement with a particular production. If the viewer doesn't like the episode in general lack of realism tends to be less tolerated but where an episode has won the viewer over they are much more forgiving. In this case I see the rather unlikely overlooking of Rook's involvement as a small price to pay for such a great story. I would also say that we are judging these oversights by contemporary standards in which there is far more awareness of stalking and the potential dangers posed by obsessive fans (or indeed trolls). Almost fifty years these phenomena were much less prominent or understood. There are also the elements of how actors and other subjects of admiration can let down their guard in the face of flattery, especially when it comes from someone so polite and apparently benign as Charles Rook. There is also the genuine difficulty they can face in seeming to reject an admirer, both the disappointment - even distress - that they may cause to often vulnerable obsessive fans, but also maybe a fear that rejection might lead that admirer to retaliate. For all these reasons the scenario is not as outlandish as it might seem. . .

The setting of the story within a TV show is an unusual but very successful one. It allows for the blurring of identities which acts as a trap for the likes of Rook. Actors love playing at being actors and writers and producers enjoy exposing the televisual process and this is very evident here. The scenes of bickering between the pompous Tony Barton - who very much sees himself as "the star" - and the Mother Superior are very funny. The camp director is also splendid fun. Anthony Newlands, Joan Haythorne and Gerry Cowan are fine in these parts. Penny Stacy is a much more conventional character who goes through great trauma as well as having to manage the infatuation of Rook and Jennie Linden gives a good account in the central role.

"Sister Mary" aka Penny Stacy (Jennie Linden)

George Maharis gives one of the best displays of American guest stars as Mark Fields. Mark is a character of great dignity, supportiveness and insight. In another realistic showbusiness touch the character has had a battle with alcoholism and is struggling to shake off that reputation among his peers but he is not angry or bitter. 

Moore, played by Windsor Davies just prior to him hitting small screen comedy fame, is one of the more interesting Thriller policeman - not generally one of the show's stronger points. In typical Thriller tradition he certainly has his limitations, notably ineptitude at crosswords, but is an engaging presence on screen. Quite a number of police in the show had a comic edge of this sort but Moore gets his act together when it matters.

The final minutes are very strong. Rook's plan and motivations are quite bizarre and macabre but make sense to his twisted mind and the scenario is is very well delivered on screen by Robert Powell and Jennie Linden. The climax is dramatic and also a somewhat poignant one and it is testimony to the strength of the third series that it had many more delights in store.        

Notes

For the second successive week an episode features a switchboard operator, in this case at "CJS Television", the makers of "Saints and Sinners".

The rock music instrumental heard at the party is also playing at Max Burns' flat in The Double Kill in Series 5.