Topspin

Topspin gives Boon-Daly Investigations its first big job, and it is a job for a newspaper. Keith Filkin, a reporter, hires Ken and Margaret to mind Dorothy North, a naive Scottish woman who has just come out of prison after fifteen years for passing on state secrets. Filkin's paper has bought her story, and it intends to keep it.

The paper gets to her first. A man from MI5 is waiting at the prison gate to talk to Dorothy, but Filkin reaches her before he can and drives her away. She takes refuge at the Plaza Suite, and when rival papers hear of the story, the ballroom is besieged by reporters.

Ken and Margaret are now guarding a woman who wants to be left alone, on behalf of people who want her for themselves. When Dorothy decides she would rather end her contract, the paper turns possessive and Filkin threatens her with the one thing she fears: if she breaks the deal, she will go back to prison.

Ken's answer is a piece of farce. Rocky dresses up as Dorothy and runs out of the Plaza Suite to draw the reporters after him, while Ken and the real Dorothy slip away. Ken then hands her over to the MI5 man, the official who was waiting for her at the start, which removes her from the paper's grasp altogether.

Harry, meanwhile, has a Greek wedding reception to cater, and no idea how to make the dishes, kleftiko among them, that the bride's mother insists on. It is a light counterweight to the main story and keeps the ballroom busy while the press wait outside.

Kieran Prendiville, once a presenter of That's Life!, later the creator of Ballykissangel, wrote the script, and Baz Taylor directs, completing his run of the first three episodes. Paula Wilcox plays Dorothy and Anthony Calf plays Filkin.

Topspin is the most popular episode of the entire run among IMDb users, and the reasons are easy to see. It has a clear situation, a siege; a clear antagonist, a newspaper that regards a person as a property; and a clear, comic resolution, with Rocky in disguise. It also asks a real question beneath the comedy: who owns a person's story, the person or the paper that has paid for it?

The title is the episode's best joke. Topspin is what a ball does when it is hit hard and dips, and it is also what a newspaper does with a story. Here the woman at the centre of the spin finally gets out of the game.

The weakness is the ending. Handing Dorothy to MI5 rescues her from the paper, but the episode does not ask whether the security services are a safer keeper, and the man from MI5 is a convenience rather than a character. For a story so alert to who controls Dorothy, it is a surprisingly trusting conclusion.

Even so, Topspin is the right episode to show anyone who wants to know what Boon could do with an hour. It is quick, funny and better constructed than most of the run, and it is one of the site's must-see recommendations for the series.