Softly Softly: Task Force · S06E01
Alert
First broadcast 1974-09-04 · Diane Keen as Susan Gleaner
An SA plane is hijacked and the Task Force pitched into the aftermath: armed security wound two hijackers and arrest a third, and by the time the aircraft is down the crisis is over — which is exactly when John Watt starts wondering which of the tidy accounts he has been given does not hold up. Keen is Susan Gleaner in an episode whose real subject is trust, or the lack of it.
The Sweeney · S00E02
Sweeney!
First broadcast 1977-01-18 · Diane Keen as Bianca Hamilton
The 1977 theatrical spin-off that took Thames's Flying Squad to the cinema: an informant dead, Regan framed on a drunk-drive charge and suspended, dodging government hitmen with nothing but his wits while Carter mostly can't help. Keen is Bianca Hamilton in the conspiracy well above Regan's pay grade — her film role, and one of the era's more revealing pieces of genre history.
The Professionals · S01E04
Killer with a Long Arm
First broadcast 1978-01-20 · Diane Keen as Hilda
Somewhere in Athens a hitman called Georgi collects a rifle with a range of over two miles and a London job; he kills a traffic cop on the way and ends up holding a family hostage in a high-rise flat while he practises for a royal visitor at Wimbledon. Keen is Hilda in an episode built on a particular chill — a marksman so far away the people around the royal box would hear nothing.
The Sandbaggers · S01E04
The Most Suitable Person
First broadcast 1978-10-09 · Diane Keen as Laura Dickens
The role that defines her genre career begins: the department short-handed, Burnside recruiting Laura Dickens, who takes the work seriously and has no illusions about what it will cost — exactly why he wants her. Keen plays the recruitment with the intelligence the writing assumes, as Dickens is sent to Algiers to find out what a dead SIS officer was doing before he died.
The Sandbaggers · S01E05
Always Glad to Help
First broadcast 1978-10-16 · Diane Keen as Laura Dickens
The SIS plans to throw over an Arab government and Whitehall cannot stop arguing about it. Keen's Dickens gets the delicate end: assigned to establish where an influential sheik's sympathies really lie while Burnside fights his own side over a covert scuba-diving operation nobody can explain. Patient intelligence work, played as the job it is.
The Sandbaggers · S01E06
A Feasible Solution
First broadcast 1978-10-23 · Diane Keen as Laura Dickens
Two romances, both bad ideas: Burnside wooing Dickens — the fortress-keeper doing gentle courtship and looking entirely unprepared for it — while Willie Caine in Cyprus falls for the KGB agent planted on him. Keen plays the same story the show tells twice, both men lowering their guard, and the audience invited to watch what happens to people who do.
The Sandbaggers · S01E07
Special Relationship
First broadcast 1978-10-30 · Diane Keen as Laura Dickens
The season closer and the reason the role is remembered: the only agent qualified to go into East Berlin after missile-site photographs is Dickens, Burnside is in love with her, and he sends her anyway — because the job is the job. Keen's capture, and the bargain Burnside then makes with the French secret service, is the sort of deal that gives The Sandbaggers its reputation.
Minder · S01E10
The Dessert Song
First broadcast 1980-01-14 · Diane Keen as Christina
Terry sees a Greek-Cypriot taking a beating in the street and walking past is not in him; one rescue leads to another, and Keen is Christina, running the family restaurant with her brother while the brother-in-law threatens her for the place. Terry goes undercover in the middle of the family's daily business — peeling vegetables, taking orders, waiting for the men to walk in.
Taggart · S03E03
Cold Blood
First broadcast 1987-12-31 · Diane Keen as Ruth Wilson
A woman shoots her husband dead after catching him in an affair — open and shut, the easiest case of Taggart's career, and the episode lets him enjoy the illusion for a quarter of an hour before the post-mortem turns everything inside out: the man was already dead when the bullet hit him. Keen is Ruth Wilson at the centre of the case the forensics unmake.