Season 13 finale - "Little Angel"

[Cynthia]

Here in southern Ontario, we had the Heartbeat Season 13 finale last night - it packed quite a punch, eerily resonating real life. When the father and the little girl were on the bridge and he knew the pursuit was catching up to them and he picked her up in his arms, I momentarily felt real dread. I knew from reading the 'spoilers' that this would be the episode where Steve Crane dies, but it was a little girl named Inara that my mind flashed to.

Not two weeks ago here, a distraught father abducted his 5 year old daughter and, in plain sight, threw her off an overpass above the 401 (motorway) before jumping himself. He's dead, she survived (barely), but 8 days later regained consciousness and her condition has now been upgraded to 'serious but stable'. Those similarities, with all the other tensions the Heartbeat writers gave us in last night's episode, really made for rivetting watching.

Now, (sob), we've got to wait 7 months to see any new episodes. There'll be 'pledge break' for a couple of weeks and then we start back at 'Speed' with reruns. Which means watching Jenny giving Dennis grief again. (Arrrggghhh!!!) Poor Dennis really got shortchanged in the happiness dep't. I hope the writers in DB's next show are fairer to his character.

And BTW, does it bother anyone else but me when HB cuts corners on details? As when Oscar hands the binoculars to Alf and Alf doesn't have to adjust the focussing ring at all to see perfectly. Just amazing how their eyesights are so exactly identical.

And poor Phil!!! Aren't the writers ever going to ease up on the misery they pour over Phil. Tom Nicholson died after trading places for wounded Phil as hostage, baby Daniel died, Gina rejected him (again!!), he had to help deliver some other man's *healthy* son, and now he couldn't save Steve. He and Oscar and Alf have been the backbone of HB - the only characters who have been in HB since the beginning. I say it's time for some happiness for Phil.

Cheers,
Cynthia

[Mike Anton]

You beat me to it Cynthia. You touched on some issues I thought of after seeing the last episode of Series 13. After seeing the abduction of the girl at the end, I thought about that incident in Toronto of that guy committing suicide and almost killing his daughter. Thankfully, it appears she will be okay. What a miracle!

What a sad way to see Crane go and it's too bad that he didn't think much of his role. His acting was too wooden, uninteresting, no real life or personality in him it seemed. From what I hear, the new PC should bring a bit more on camera charisma. As you mentioned, sadly we will have to wait several months for series 14 to begin. I wonder how many of us here in Canada will read ahead.

And yes, poor Phil, losing yet another partner and poor Blaketon having suffered another heart attack. I didn't think his ticker was that bad.

Anyway, cheers Cynthia from Whitby, Ontario.

[KateLovesDennis]

That's so sad about the guy in Toronto, total coincidence on the date it was shown, that ep was filmed in May 2004. It was one of the ones I saw being filmed and when I got Mark Jordan's autograph.

You are lucky getting repeats of the last series, we never get repeats of the more recent stuff (Although now ITV have a third channel we do get the ep. repeated the following week, before that started if you missed one you'd missed it forever.) We get repeats of series 1 and 2 on cable and sky channels and they did show some eps up to series 9 I think it was not too long ago.

I never notriced that about the binos, they are usually very meticulous on details. When they are filming they are very careful not to catch even the edge of anything modern in the shots. It is wonderful to watch, when they set up the shots they adjust things to cover stuff up. When I was watching filming for "Little Angel" they were filming at the front of the garage and they were all set up and had done a practice run through and everything when one of the chaps dashed across to where the old morris minor is parked (I don't thing it would move if they wanted it to, total rust bucket) and said "Just have to cover up the 21st century" and moved one of the old sign boards cos something modern was showing behind it at that angle.

I don't know much about farming in Canada but in the UK they make silage in big round bailes and wrap them in black plastic wrapping now, which they didn't do in the 60's so the HB team have a load of tarpaulanes which they take round a put over the stacks so they look like straw stacks, even if they are miles away across the valley.

Totally agree about Phil, he is so sweet about time he had a bit of happiness even if only for a while.

Talking of "Little Angel" last time I was in Whitby I noticed there was a pub called "Little Angel" not far from where Jenny's flat is. There's a pic of it on my website. (I forgot to look to see if the building where Jenny's flat is has roof windows, if it has, then they might have filmed the interior scenes there too. Must remember to look next time I go there)