The Unorthodox Shepherd

"The Unorthodox Shepherd"
Joe 90 episode
Episode no. Season 1
Episode 13
Directed by Ken Turner
Written by Tony Barwick
Cinematography by Paddy Seale
Editing by Harry MacDonald
Production code 8
Original air date 22 December 1968
Guest appearance(s)

Voices of:
Gary Files as
The Reverend Joseph Shepherd
Police Constable Lewis
David Healy as
Kline
Martin King as
Mason

"The Unorthodox Shepherd" is the 13th episode of Joe 90, a British 1960s Supermarionation television series co-created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. Written by Tony Barwick and directed by Ken Turner, it was first broadcast on 22 December 1968 on ATV Midlands. In this Christmas-themed episode, an investigation into the production of counterfeit currency leads WIN to an unusual suspect – a church minister.

The episode incorporates live-action location filming to an extent never previously attempted for an Anderson production. This influenced the hybrid format of the final Supermarionation series, The Secret Service.

Plot

A series of counterfeit United States dollar bills have been traced to an unlikely source – the Reverend Joseph Shepherd, vicar at the rural St David's Church. WIN's suspicions are raised, and in the days leading up to Christmas Professor McClaine, Sam Loover and Joe 90 are dispatched to the neighbouring village to investigate. Equipped with the brain pattern of a World Bank vice president, Joe determines that the bills were printed within the last two weeks, even though the last official printing was 17 years ago and the plates were subsequently destroyed in a fire. The trio decide to confront the Reverend, who appears to be half-deaf, at his vicarage. There, the suspect amazes the WIN agents by identifying the make of Loover's gun based on nothing more than the click of its safety catch.

Shepherd reveals that his deafness is an act and confirms that the plates were not destroyed: they have been smuggled into England by two criminals, Kline and Mason, who are using them to print $6 million in forged bills. The plates were hidden inside the coffin of Mason's recently deceased uncle, Clem Mason (known to the international intelligence community as the racketeer Carlo Masoni) who wished to be buried in the village of his birth. Kline and Mason's hideout is on the church grounds, in the crypt beneath Clem's tomb. To divert attention from the counterfeiting operation, Mason has installed electronic devices inside the church, causing the bells to ring at odd hours and leading the villagers to believe that the building is haunted. The counterfeiters are also holding Thomas, the verger, hostage and have threatened to kill him if Shepherd betrays them to the authorities. Desperate for money to save St David's from dry rot, the Reverend had no choice but to agree to Kline and Mason's demands.

Loover devises a plan to foil Kline and Mason's scheme by using Mason's fears against him. That night, with the $6 million target fast approaching and all devices removed from the church, the counterfeiters are puzzled to hear the bells ring out once again. While searching for the presumed trespassers, Mason is terrified when Loover, hiding in the darkness with a megaphone, claims to be the spirit of Carlo Masoni and warns that the Angel of Death will come to avenge his "desecrated" memory.

Holding Thomas at gunpoint, Kline and Mason emerge from the crypt to meet the spirit. Under Mac's instruction, Joe, wearing a jet pack underneath white robes, takes flight and swoops towards Kline and Mason. While Mason flees, Kline fires wildly at Joe until the boy knocks him down. Having stationed himself near the church at Shepherd's request, Police Constable Lewis is on hand to arrest the counterfeiters.

Some time later, a white Christmas has arrived. The combination of two rewards for assisting in the recovery of the stolen plates - £8,000 from WIN and £2,000 from Interpol – has given Shepherd the funds necessary to restore St David's. The episode ends with shots of the snow-covered fields surrounding the village overlaid with the sounds of the church's congregation singing "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing".

Production

The interior and exterior of the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Harefield, appear frequently in the episode.

"The Unorthodox Shepherd" features extensive location footage of the Church of St Mary the Virgin in Harefield, Hillingdon; the building doubles as St David's, the Reverend Shepherd's church.[1] In early 1968, after the filming of Thunderbird 6, episode director Ken Turner and production designer Keith Wilson travelled to Harefield to carry out a location recce on the church grounds.[1] During pre-production of the episode at the Century 21 studios in Slough, Wilson used photographs from the recce to build a scale model of the church's interior for the puppet scenes.[1] The scale model of Clem Mason's tomb, concealing the entrance to the counterfeiters' crypt, was based on a real monument in the churchyard.[1][2]

Returning to Harefield, the production staff recorded insert shots inside the church and filmed a life-sized puppet of the villain Mason on the path outside.[1][3] Later, after a snowfall, a panning shot of the surrounding fields was recorded for the episode's ending.[1] Century 21 would re-visit the Church of St Mary the Virgin in September 1969 to film the closing scenes of the UFO episode "The Square Triangle".[1][2]

Music for "The Unorthodox Shepherd" was recorded in two parts. Church organ and harp music was recorded in a two-hour session on 26 March 1968 at composer Barry Gray's private studio;[4] the rest of the score, running to two minutes and 24 seconds, in a four-hour session on 10 April at CTS Studio.[5] The score for the episode "Big Fish" also originated from the second studio session.[5]

In a scene deleted from the finished episode, Police Constable Lewis arrests Mason and Kline following their encounter with the disguised Joe.[1]

Reception

Andrew Pixley, writing for Time Screen magazine, considers "The Unorthodox Shepherd" to be "rather above average" but questions the logic of the episode's conclusion.[6] Simon Archer and Marcus Hearn, authors of What Made Thunderbirds Go! The Authorised Biography of Gerry Anderson, believe the episode to be among the best of Joe 90, praising it as an example of a spy adventure that "explored the series' unique formula to intriguing effect".[7]

The use of live-action sequences was positively received by the production staff, who considered the overall effect convincing;[3] Archer and Hearn write that the episode showcases the "seamless integration" possible in mixing puppets with live actors.[8] In this respect, "The Unorthodox Shepherd" serves as a precursor to the final Supermarionation series, The Secret Service (1969),[3][6] which combined puppet sequences with greater amounts of live action (a hybrid format that according to Archer and Hearn "saw Supermarionation through to its natural conclusion").[9] Pixley notes the Reverend Shepherd's similarity to Father Stanley Unwin of the later series, remarking that like Unwin he is a vicar who "isn't all he seems".[6]

Ian Fryer of FAB magazine likens "The Unorthodox Shepherd" to the final episode of The Secret Service, "More Haste Less Speed", noting that both episodes "centre on the production of counterfeit dollar bills in old basements, and feature a vicar who isn't what he seems to be."[10] He believes that both "The Unorthodox Shepherd" and the later Joe 90 episode "See You Down There" represent an "early flowering of the whimsy that was to be the defining feature of The Secret Service."[10]

Alasdair Wilkins of the entertainment website io9 argues that "The Unorthodox Shepherd", besides being "bonkers in the way most Joe 90 episodes are", is "one of the oddest Christmas episodes ever made".[11] He regards it as more innovative than similarly-themed instalments of earlier Supermarionation series, such as "Give or Take a Million" (Thunderbirds) and "A Christmas to Remember" (Stingray).[11] Wilkins describes the plan involving the Angel costume and the jet pack as "[taking Mason and Kline's] idea of scaring people with a fake haunting and [cranking] it up to 20", also remarking that the dependence on scare tactics in the face of armed opponents constitutes a "seriously insane risk to build a plan around".[11] He considers "The Unorthodox Shepherd" to be "one of the more quietly religious Christmas episodes I've seen, if only because there's no talk of trees or presents, but the story does end with a trip to the church for the Christmas service".[11]

The episode's title has been criticised by the website TV Cream[12] and the magazine SFX, the latter ranking "The Unorthodox Shepherd" 21st in a list of "worst TV episode titles".[13]

Home media

The 2003 Joe 90 Region 1 DVD box set by A&E Home Video features an audio commentary for "The Unorthodox Shepherd" with director Ken Turner.[14]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Joe 90 Collector's Edition DVD Box Set: Disc 2 Special Features: "The Unorthodox Shepherd" Location Recce (DVD). London: Carlton. 2002.
  2. 1 2 "The Gerry Anderson Location Guide". Bradford, UK: Fanderson. Archived from the original on 17 May 2009. Retrieved 14 April 2007.
  3. 1 2 3 La Rivière, Stephen (2009). Filmed in Supermarionation: A History of the Future. Neshannock, Pennsylvania: Hermes Press. p. 190. ISBN 978-1-932563-23-8.
  4. ↑ de Klerk, Theo (25 December 2003). "Complete Studio-Recording List of Barry Gray". tvcentury21.com. Archived from the original on 30 December 2013. Retrieved 14 February 2014.
  5. 1 2 Joe 90 Original Television Soundtrack (Media notes). Barry Gray. Silva Screen Music. 2006. p. 13.
  6. 1 2 3 Pixley, Andrew (Summer 1988). McKay, Anthony, ed. "It's Only A Time-Flight Script". Time Screen. No. 3 (Revised). Engale Marketing (published Autumn 1988). pp. 36–37.
  7. ↑ Archer and Hearn 2002, p. 170.
  8. ↑ Archer and Hearn 2002, p. 171.
  9. ↑ Archer and Hearn 2002, p. 180.
  10. 1 2 Fryer, Ian (2011). "The Unorthodox Shepherd". FAB. No. 69. Bradford, UK: Fanderson. p. 29.
  11. 1 2 3 4 Wilkins, Alasdair (25 December 2013). "Behold the Bizarre Wonder of a Supermarionation Christmas". io9. New York City, New York: Gawker Media. Archived from the original on 26 December 2013. Retrieved 14 February 2014.
  12. ↑ "'J' is for ... Joe 90". TV Cream. Archived from the original on 14 February 2014. Retrieved 14 February 2014.
  13. ↑ "The Worst TV Episode Titles". SFX. Bath, UK: Future Publishing. 1 January 2009. Archived from the original on 29 October 2012. Retrieved 14 February 2014.
  14. ↑ Frampton, Andrew (9 April 2009). "2000 and Beyond – DVDs". bigrat.co.uk. Archived from the original on 28 October 2007. Retrieved 14 February 2014.

Bibliography

  • Archer, Simon; Hearn, Marcus (2002). What Made Thunderbirds Go! The Authorised Biography of Gerry Anderson. London, UK: BBC Books. ISBN 978-0-563-53481-5.
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