The Shadow of the Tower (1972) s01e12 – The Fledgling

I really had no idea how far “Shadow” could drop, did I? I mean, The Fledgling manages to be the worst episode of the series (with only one left) and with Richard Warwick in it but nowhere near the worst part. Though, to be fair, Warwick is in a much reduced role compared to the last two episodes. Instead, Christopher Neame is the lead, playing the grown-up Earl of Warwick (who was in the first couple episodes). He’s been living in the Tower of London since Henry (James Maxwell) came to power and spends his life in his rooms, rarely getting to go outside, very little contact with anyone other than his keepers. Maxwell had promised to never kill him but Neame always thinks the order is coming.

This episode is about how and why the order finally comes. See, Maxwell wants to marry off his son (Jason Kemp) to the princess of Spain and the Spanish rulers demand he kill Warwick and Neame. The throne must be secured and the Spanish see those two guys as problems. Only Maxwell doesn’t want to kill them; they didn’t do anything after all. He doesn’t seem to remember promising not to kill Neame, but then Queen Norma West also doesn’t seem to remember she didn’t want Maxwell to kill him back in the first couple episodes either.

So Maxwell and his people come up with a plan. Convince Neame there’s a plot against him to try to get him to commit treason with Warwick (the actor who’s not playing the Earl of Warwick) so Maxwell can kill them both. Neame he just has to terrorize with innuendo but Warwick they throw man-meat Hayward Morse to inspire Warwick’s lust for multiple things, including treason.

Neame’s not great, but he’s at least trying with the part; his character’s been isolated for ten years, with all sorts of psychological issues no doubt. He’s sympathetic as all hell, which just makes it worse when Maxwell’s so callous about killing him.

Making Maxwell evil, with one episode to go, is a weird flex. It’s a disappointing episode to be sure.

The Shadow of the Tower (1972) s01e11 – The Strange Shapes of Reality

Oh, no, Richard Warwick is back. And now we’re getting the story of his time just imprisoned, because the king (James Maxwell) pities him so won’t just execute him. Executing him means taking him seriously as a threat to the crown and Warwick can’t be seen as a threat. And so on and so forth. So we get an entire episode about Warwick being a brat in captivity, but his keepers still give him a blind boy. Like… literally, a blond, blind boy to comfort Warwick. Meanwhile Warwick’s wife, Elizabeth MacLennan, has to learn to deal with being nobility falsely married off to a pretender and how’s she going to cope. Plus there’s the whole thing where her identity is changing completely out of her control and through no fault of her own. Everyone lied to her and used her as a pawn.

MacLennan’s good. Like, the episode’s not good, but MacLennan’s good. And her story arc, where Maxwell sees her as a pal so much MacLennan gets confronted by Marigold Sharman (as the king’s mother), which leads to a good enough scene. Shame they can’t bring the same humanity to Warwick.

So, again, there’s stuff in the script for Warwick to work with. He gets to see how a real king—Maxwell—behaves. He gets humiliated at public confessions. He has these potentially great scenes opposite MacLennan. But Warwick’s just too flat. His take on the character is he’s too stupid to know what’s going on, which clashes with the various acts of agency he’s had throughout this episode and last. It’s kind of what he was like in the first appearance small part, but Warwick really ought to have tried to develop the character past that point… But he didn’t, because Warwick’s bad.

At this point, I’m just hoping “Tower” doesn’t drop too much further or I’m going to be eating my words on the comedy episodes making it all worth it. Because it’s worse than just mediocre, it’s a misfire. The show has done much better and much, much better. Warwick is bleeding the show.

The Shadow of the Tower (1972) s01e10 – The Man Who Never Was

I was unprepared for The Man Who Never Was, even acknowledging the anthology nature of the show, which has had great successes, could also have great failures. And the episode is most definitely a failure. But because of casting. It’s a strange episode in general—lots of flashbacks, lots of seventies sly “oh, maybe he likes boys” hints, which then get more explicit and then what the show seems to think is obvious but it’s really sexual assault. Okay, maybe not all of it is casting this episode. Maybe director Darrol Blake just has the wrong take on how to present a lot of things. But even if he’s askew, he’s not responsible for lead Richard Warwick.

Warwick is a pretender to the throne, the most popular one, but as King James Maxwell’s reign has continued and hell hasn’t frozen over, he’s lost favor. He was in the last episode for so short a scene I didn’t remember it was Warwick, who looks so much like Dylan Walsh in am eighties blond surfer wig it’s distracting. So I was blank slate with Warwick here and, wow, is he terrible. He’s “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such a bad performance on the BBC” bad. It’s like someone in casting owed a really, really, really big favor and Warwick was it.

So even though the script offers a lot of direct and indirect possibilities for the role, Warwick plays it like he’s an idiot. Sure, a victim of sorts, but because he’s an idiot. The show’s classism shows a little, as it tries to imagine his motivations dramatically and sympathetically while syncing with some historical realities. The stuff with his wife, Elizabeth MacLennan, for instance, seems like it’s there to be a control. Because otherwise it’s just Warwick trying to chew on scenery and slobbering on it instead. It’s uncomfortably bad to see. But then the show will have some bad reveal on Warwick’s past and you’ll get sympathetic—to the historical figure—again; a moment or two later, Warwick will ruin even that detached sympathy.

He’s real bad.

And I’m not sure anyone told him he was supposed to be bi. Like, the other guys in the scenes know they’re supposed to be gay, but Warwick never seems to get it. It’s very, very strange.

But it’s just one episode, right? And I said, no matter what happens, the comedies of “In the Shadow of the Tower” cement the series.

The Shadow of the Tower (1972) s01e09 – Do the Sheep Sin?

Continuing the hit streak is this episode, Do the Sheep Sin?, which has King James Maxwell dealing with a protest march. He’s been taxing the hell out of the poor, albeit somewhat unintentionally (he thought he was taxing the rich, they just put it on to the poor), and the poor decide they’re going to march on London to plead relief. “Tower”’s 1972 shows a little as the suffering peasants plead with their betters, only for their betters to give them pointless advice and the show’s middle class values are firmly with the betters telling the poor to get over it. They’re not even telling them to pull themselves up by the bootstraps—there’s no Calvinism yet—they just tell them to suffer.

Suffer so Maxwell can wage a war on the latest pretender to his throne, Richard Warwick. Warwick, playing a guy named Perkin Warbeck, is barely in the episode. And there’s a confusing bit about protest leader John Castle, who’s phenomenal, sending secret messages—unless I missed one, and I don’t think I did—there are actually two secret messages while the viewer is left thinking a single secret message was delivered. It’s a messy moment in the script, which is otherwise dead-on. Except, of course, the utterly lack of humanity when it comes to Maxwell’s take on the poor. Was medieval royalty so inhumane as history—even positive history—presents them? Bunch of pricks.

Anyway. So long as the protest doesn’t have arms, it’s not considered a revolt or whatever. So much of the episode is Maxwell sitting around, waiting for the protest, while Castle is drumming up drama. He’s got a hero of the people figure, John Woodvine, making the protest seem kosher, while Castle’s been hoarding weapons for the first chance to take things up a notch. Castle’s ambitions are rather interesting as he’s able to recognize actual injustice and exploit it to manipulate the peasants. He’s the son of a noble, natch, and noble daddy David Garth is actually the one who narcs on Castle to the king. The king investigates, the peasants take up arms, now it’s able minimizing the public image damage.

It’s good. It starts better than it finishes, but it’s good. The script, by Anthea Browne-Wilkinson and John Gould, also has a bit of a determinism problem. The only reason Maxwell is able to drum up trouble in the protest is because Castle’s corrupt. If Castle weren’t corrupt, which Maxwell has no idea about, the investigation is just information gathering, the protest wouldn’t have turned into rebellion. What was Maxwell going to do then? Browne-Wilkinson and Gould don’t even suggest Maxwell would consider that possibility, over ten thousand peasants asking for an audience with their king.

It’s a missed opportunity and a dodgy move.

But otherwise, a rather strong episode, which is good; it’s Maxwell’s biggest part in the story in quite a while.