Written by Philip Broadley
Directed by James Ferman

Paul Derring (Norman Eshley) is a smooth-talking conman who targets beautiful, young, upper-class women.  He spies his latest mark, Elizabeth Charmont (Jenny Hanley), and moves in.  Elizabeth has never met him before – but he seems to know everything about her.  “Although we’ve never met, I know you. There is an empathy between us.”  He goes on to tell her things about herself that no stranger could possibly know.  Initially it seems that he’s an astrologer like Esther, but it turns out he’s been abusing Esther’s gifts for his own ends – which proves to be his downfall.

Since Esther writes a successful horoscope column (under the name of “Sibyl”) she receives many requests for personal horoscopes.  One such letter strikes a chord and she suddenly realises that recently she’s been sent numerous pleas for horoscopes – apparently from different people – but now it dawns on her that they’ve all come from the same person.  The names are different each time, but a handwriting expert called Toby (Charles Lloyd Pack) confirms that the signatures are all from the same hand.  So Esther calls in Gradley – she wants to find out who’s been doing this and why.

Since the opening of the story is Esther-centric, Gradley doesn’t appear until thirteen minutes in – but it’s worth waiting for, as Anton Rodgers is a vision in denim.  Maybe he was dressed down in order to make Hempel (who’s wearing a rather nice black evening dress) look even more stunning?  Esther shows him the letters and they decide that the first one – sent by a Paul Derring – is probably genuine.  So can they locate Derring?

The system he’s worked out to provide himself with victims is quite neat – he has a confederate called Penny (Deborah Norton) who works at a flower shop which is frequented by the upper-classes.  Whenever somebody visits to buy flowers for a likely target’s birthday, Penny makes a note of their birth-date and address and passes the information onto Derring.  He then requests a horoscope from Esther and therefore is able to astound his latest conquest with a host of impressive facts about their life.

Philip Broadley’s script follows the template laid down by Roger Marshall’s first two stories.  There’s plenty of banter between the two leads and a general lightness of touch throughout.  Whilst Derring is a conman, he also has a sense of humour and the script and direction help to accentuate this by throwing in the odd, wrong-footing moment.  My favourite is the scene that opens with a close-up on Derring’s face.  He looks quite serious, but as the camera pans down it becomes clear that he’s merely standing in his underpants, ironing his trousers!

The obvious plan is for Esther to present herself to Derring as his latest victim, which causes Gradley a little pain as she artfully stokes up his jealousy by casually mentioning how charming Derring is.  Fashion-wise, Hempel sports a variety of costumes, from the aforementioned black dress to a towel (and looks good in all of them).  Thankfully, Rodgers’ denim interlude is quite brief and he spends the rest of the story more conventionally attired.

One unusual thing about the series to date is that it’s completely studio-bound.  It wasn’t unheard of for some 1960’s series (like Sergeant Cork) to be almost entirely recorded in the studio (although that, I assume, was probably due to the show’s Victorian setting – it would have been difficult to film outside without major redressing of most locations).  Since Zodiac was a contemporary series, that problem didn’t apply – and the lack of location work does make the programme feel a little claustrophobic at times.

Written by Roger Marshall
Directed by Raymond Menmuir

Although not as familiar a name as, say, Brian Clemens, Roger Marshall is something of a British television drama legend. He co-created Public Eye and wrote many of its best episodes (including all of the first Thames series).  During the 1980’s he created and wrote two well received series, Travelling Man and Floodtide.

He was also very adept as a writer-for-hire, crafting quality episodes for programmes like The Avengers, Van Der Valk and The Sweeney.  Another outstanding Marshall script was provided for series two of Survivors (Parasites, tx 2nd June 1976).

Having said all this, I can’t put my hand on my heart and claim that Zodiac (which he created and wrote three of its six episodes) is a highlight on his CV, but it does have its moments – mainly thanks to the lead performances of Anouska Hempel and Anton Rodgers, some witty dialogue and a number of quality guest stars.

Rodgers is David Gradley (a most unusual policeman) and Hempel is Esther Jones (an astrologer) and together they solve crimes that hinge, more or less, on the signs of the Zodiac.  Alas, it seemed that public and critical indifference ensured that they only managed to cover six of the twelve signs.

The opening five minutes of Death of a Crab could be seen as an exercise in testing the patience of the audience. Since it’s a new series, you might expect a good, swift hook to capture their attention – instead we see Parker (Peter Childs) making himself at home at the luxury penthouse apartment owned by Aikman (John Rhys-Davies).  Aikman isn’t there, but he’s left a recorded message inviting Parker to treat the place as his own.

So Parker wanders about, examines the fixtures and fittings, pours himself a drink, has a cigar, draws a bath and settles down to enjoy his scotch.  By now, five minutes have elapsed – but just before you wonder exactly when the story will start, Parker slumps in his chair, unconscious.  Next morning, the maid discovers his dead body in the bath and the police, in the form of Gradley, are called.

Whilst this has the hallmarks of a police series (with a mystical edge) one thing that’s missing are (with the exception of Gradley) the police.  Unusually, he’s the only representative of the force we see.  He doesn’t have a sidekick (something later mentioned by Esther) and there’s no sign of fingerprint or forensic officers at the scene of the crime either.

When he and Esther meet for the first time she expresses incredulity that he’s a policeman (presumably because of his, by 1974 standards, natty clothing).  He responds that “we no longer sport the blue serge and silver buttons.”

Gradley is intrigued by Esther’s trade, but is unconvinced (at least to begin with).  “An astrologer?  Shouldn’t you be in gypsy kit, polishing your crystal ball?  I hear your union is pressing for a universal ban on tea bags.  Any truth in it?”  When Esther asks him if he’s a bigot or sceptic, he replies “neither, I just think it’s a load of old … Taurus.”

The clash between the rational police procedure of Gradley and the mystical intuition of Esther is obviously one of the series’ selling points, although the elements do sit rather uneasily together.  If the series had run for longer then maybe Esther’s skills could have been integrated better into the stories – on the evidence of the first episode she tends to deliver uncannily accurate predictions based on people’s astrological signs with the occasional leap into the unknown. Having somebody with that level of insight does create problems in telling a straightforward story – if the writer’s in a hole, then it’s tempting for Esther to have a vision and provide Gradley with previously unknown information.

The revelation that Esther was married to Parker does (briefly) make her an object of suspicion – but to be honest, this is a murder mystery with only one suspect.  That does sap a little of the interest, but Hempel is gorgeous and Rodgers is amusing, and their witty byplay is good enough to keep this viewer interested.