Review WHO PAYS THE FERRYMAN (1977)

michaellevenson

Member: Rank 8
Mentioned this elsewhere but worth going into this with a little more depth.
This is an eight episode series, which IMO is one of the best dramas that the BBC ever made.
Starring Jack Hedly, filmed in beautiful Crete using local actors and some top British talent.
The plot
Alan Haldane during WW2 served with the partisan army defending Crete from the Nazis.
He was a hero, nicknamed The Lionheart, and now thirty years later returns to Crete after his wife's death. Greeted by the islanders as a returning hero by most but not all.
He discovers he left behind a mess thirty years previously, a pregnant girl called Malina.
To avoid shame her mother married her off to a man she didn't love, a ruined life, because of Haldane.
The mother, a matriarchal vicious woman wants revenge for the humiliation put upon her family.
Haldane is told all this by his lawyer friend, played by Neil McCarthy, (Thawn Power of Kroll Dr Who), Haldane claims he wrote to Malina but received no reply , so he just moved on. This is denied by his friend, she received no letters.
He settles down on Crete, meets his daughter without telling her who he is, and falls in love with a woman called Annika, who turns out to be Malina's sister, and she doesn't know of his past actions. It's a mess really!
The mother gathers forces to rally against him and will go to any lengths including murder.
The show's title derives from the Cretan legend that states that Charon ferries the souls of the dead into Hades, and must be paid, so coins are placed in the mouths of the dead. So when Haldane gets a letter with just two words " For Charon" and two coins, he knows his in deep do-do.
Lalla Ward appears in episode 2 as the daughter of another returning partisan hero, but his heroics were very different and problematic.
Gareth Thomas, with an Aussie accent appears on episode 4 bringing a coffin containing his grandfather to be buried in Crete but runs up against a family feud that prevents the burial, Haldane tries to help but discovers that Annika his lover is of the family preventing this burial, her mother, the evil Matriarch ,sees an opportunity to break her daughter's relationship with Haldane as part of her vendetta.
Blakes7 star Sally Knyvette is in episode 6 as a recovering addict , and the series ends in a jaw dropping finale of bitterness revenge tragedy murder and a showdown between Annika and her mother that left me stunned when I saw it .
The series is on youtube, original soundtrack with Dutch subtitles.
DETAILED EPISODE BY EPISODE REVIEWS START HERE.
https://www.imdforums.com/threads/who-pays-the-ferryman-ep1-return-to-yesterday.5077/

 
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Carol

Member: Rank 5
My gut tells me this somehow connects with The Lotus Eaters and I don;t want to cheat by looking it up - I want to REMEMBER Dammit!
 

michaellevenson

Member: Rank 8
Yes ,this is Michael J Bird's follow up series.
The Cretan Police captain from Lotus Eaters is in this too, but no other connection.
Lotus Eaters I love too , this is same style. OMG! The ending still makes me shiver, it's staggering.
 

Carol

Member: Rank 5
Thanks, Michael - would dearly love to see it all again, as a "grown up", because I think there were levels I was missing out on, although around that time I was 100% I Claudius was the business.
 

chainsaw_metal1

Member: Rank 8
although around that time I was 100% I Claudius was the business.
I was about 15 or 16 when my local PBS station showed I Claudius in the early 90s, and I ate it up. I have been a huge fan of Jacobi ever since. And to see Captain Picard running around in a Centurion's costume with a bad wig was a definite plus.
 

michaellevenson

Member: Rank 8
For Blakes7 fans, Gareth Thomas appears in episode 4 .
It can be enjoyed as a stand alone story.
The underlying arc of a vendetta against Alan Haldane (Jack Hedley) is still there, a vendetta due to him impregnating an unmarried girl during the war. The Matriarch of the family leading the witch-hunt, but here Thomas plays an Aussie bringing a coffin to Crete containing his grandfather for burial, and he falls foul.of a feud between families, with Haldane helping out.
Thomas is great in this, just prior to his Blakes7 role.
English soundtrack.
 
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