Old Beginnings

In the last week I've seen the pilot episodes of two shows. Unfortunately they aren't the discovery of new shows, but just that I've finally seen how two old favourites began.

I was given the boxset of the first series of Ironside for Christmas (hurray!) which begins with a feature length pilot episode which shows Ironside receiving the gunshot injury that leds to him being in a wheelchair. I had assumed that much of Ironside's tough-talking cynicism came from being disabled, but this episode showed that the pre-shooting Ironside was much the same. He gave a great welcome to new recruits to the police force that told them they'd either be corrupt or assumed to be corrupt, and unappreciated until they were shot in the line of duty. He gave the nun nurses in hospital a hard time, he gave his colleagues a hard time and then he caught the person who shot him.

ITV4 continues to show no logic in how it shows Randall & Hopkirk Deceased and completely out of sync throw in the original pilot episode in the middle of the series. Whereas Ironside was disabled, the first episode here shows how Marty Hopkirk ended up dead and wearing a white suit. Marty is killed in what appears at first to be a hit and run, but he returns to haunt Jeff to tell him that it was murder. It is a great introduction to the premise of the series, that would have been better had it been shown at the start of the series!