Leslie Darbon

24th March 1970 (IMDb) or 4th November 1969 (epguides.com)

August 14th 1973

In Naples a car is driving through the mountains. A sinister looking man watches the car through binoculars. A compatriot, armed with a machine gun, is given a signal that the car is approaching. The chauffeur checks his passenger and his pistol. A man in a flat cap plants a mine on the dirt road and moves back into the bushes to hide. The car is blown up by the mine and the bad guys race over, machine guns blazing, to check on their handiwork. A short time later, a bumpkin in a dirty truck is approaching. He gets out to have a look at the burning car. He pulls open the door and drags out the occupant.

It is a wax dummy.

Four and a half minutes into the thing, Jason, in lavender dressing gown, is sipping scotch and recounting the facts of the case to an unseen visitor. It turns out to be "Charlie Crippin" – the wax work found in the car. The dummy has no papers on him and Department S are baffled as to who he is and why he was in a fancy car. Or indeed why anyone would want to kill him.

John Savident is the sinister foreign ambassador slash official. He’s famous for being in pretty much every great TV series in Britain. Blake's 7, Yes Minister, Coronation Street, Doctor Who (albeit briefly) and Never the Twain.

Peter Arne plays Slovic – the weird beret wearing assassin and all round bad egg. He’s probably best known for dying before he could appear in Doctor Who and scaring Sandra Dickinson when she saw the headline "Doctor Who Star Killed". He would appear again in Department S making him one of the few returnees. But two pales into insignificance compared with twelve appearances in Kate O'Mara's "Triangle".

Edward De Souza plays photographer Paul Dupont. He is of course Marc Cory from "Mission to the Unknown" and the enigmatically named Man in the final Sapphire and Steel adventure.

She is at the forensic examination of the car, wearing a strange coat and sporting the Tara King hairdo. She spots a clue that has evaded the finest Italian forensic officers. It is some kind of badge or brooch and is almost certainly pivotal.

She pronounces "milometer" as "mile-a-meter" instead of the more usual "Mile-ometer".

She has a photographer friend called Paul Dupont who is on assignment in the area. He’s stumbled across a big story but won’t tell her what. He later gets beaten up while taking snaps and develops an Inspector Clouseau accent.

She wears a pale blue dress which turns out not to be a minidress but is a top and matching shorts.

The only vaguely sexy thing in this episode is hot wax and given that it is dripping off the face of a scary looking dummy I don’t think it counts.

Jason is getting dolled up (for no reason other than he is Jason King) when a pretty blonde stranger knocks on his door and takes him out for a drink. She is a big fan and insists on him signing books for all her family. She turns out to be the niece of a big cheese in the mafia. This causes Jason some ethical discomfort but she flatters his ego so he’s basically fine with it.

There is a slightly sinister priest whose moustache is one to rival Jason’s. The two meet in a grave yard but they don’t fight over it. I hoped they would. The grave is obviously significant because we visit it twice.

Jason talks to the dummy throughout the episode. It’s charming at first but a bit weird after twenty minutes or so.

He helps himself to a drink in the study of Count Von Streicher and is horrified to discover that said millionaire has marked the decanter. He considers the man a philistine and isn’t at all surprised that he doesn’t have any Mark Caine novels on his shelves. It turns out the Count is a big fan of Jason King.

They go back to the Count’s house after dark and break in for a better look around. Jason, with uncommon clumsiness, sets off an alarm after a few seconds browsing. A fight breaks out.

Jason is reading a newspaper, in bed and borderline naked, when he finds the vital clue. He throws the paper to Charlie and we see he’s given his dummy a glass of scotch.

Jason goes to visit Captain Svenoski and tries out his full repertoire of languages before the guard reveals that he speaks English. He wants to see the Captain about "a car without number plates".

The Captain offers him a drink – Jason chooses brandy but describes it as a bit "premature".

While Jason is out car shopping, he explains that Mark Caine once drove a "Klondike Mark 2" with a miniature organ in the back. He composed tunes while on the way to his assignments.

Stewart, in a brown suede jacket, beige trousers and brown roll-neck jumper, goes to visit the bumpkin. He tries to get on the bumpkin’s good side by complimenting him on his spuds. Their conversation is observed by a deeply sinister looking Peter Glaze look-a-like in a French beret and plastic spectacles.

After the fight at the Count’s house, Annabelle gives Stewart raw steak for his swollen eye. Nice.

Stewart leads the bad guys away in a chase as part of the exciting climax. He in a sports car, them in a Volkswagen camper van.

A bit of a mish mash episode with too many factions battling each other. The Mafia seems to have been included solely because they were in Italy and the producers thought it was compulsory. The mystery itself is a strong one and is explained logically but the payoff is too similar to a device already used in the series. They shouldn’t be recycling after only nine episodes.

Jason talking to the dummy is a bit creepy and we never do find out why he named it "Charlie Crippin". Maybe he’s just used to giving pet names to dolls, dummies and people with melted faces.