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Have you seen Children of the Stones (1977)?

Yes

Partially

No, but I've heard of it

Never heard of it

Voting ended onJan 17

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Virgin of the Secret Service (ATV, 1968)

"A bomb, at Dawki, on Tuesday, killed nine enlisted men; an explosion in the mess at Chamba bereaved eleven British women; and furthermore, Major Hamilton lost three fingers of his right hand, a great loss! Major Hamilton was one of the finest polo players in the North-West Frontier."

That most prolific of TV writers, Ted Willis, might have been excused for resting on his laurels by 1968. He had two long-running hits under his belt already; Sergeant Cork (1963 - 1968) was just drawing to a close on ATV, whilst BBC juggernaut Dixon Of Dock Green (1955 - 1976) rumbled gamely on, and Ted himself was now Baron Willis of Chislehurst - he had well and truly made it. Never one to stay idle, however, Ted pitched a new series to ATV, something a little different: where much of his work until this point had concentrated on the police procedural, his new show was to eschew the groundings of realism in favour of dashing spies, exotic locales and grand comic book style adventures. So Virgin Of The Secret Service was born.

Even by the standards of mid-60s, non-ITC television, Virgin is pretty obscure, and there's precious little information out there about the series. I can make some informed guesses, but they are only guesses; clearly Ted wanted to try something different, and the series is certainly unlike anything he had created to that point - or indeed, much of what came after. Gone were methodical investigations and wise, older detective figures - in came sword fights and deadly tarantulas and exploding tennis balls. The subtle, wry humour of Cork and Dixon is replaced with outlandish, arch pastiche. Drawing heavily on the Boys' Own magazine style of serialised adventure story, with dashing heroes and foreign villainy clashing all around the British Empire of Old, the series is a larger than life tribute to a style of storytelling that had already fallen out of fashion.

Whether it was a success or not, I don't really know - like I say, there is very little information out there. I suspect not, and it certainly hasn't entered the public consciousness in anything like the way some of its' contemporaries have. Certainly it didn't last long - one series of thirteen episodes. I suspect - though I'm guessing again - that it was never conceived to be the sort of durable hit that Ted was known for. The sets and the costumes look impressively expensive, and the concept simply doesn't lend itself to multiple seasons of adventure. It is, though, for thirteen brief episodes, gloriously, brilliantly fun.