Shot in the Dark

Shot in the Dark is the last regular episode of Boon, and it puts Harry in the detective's chair. It begins with a theft at night from a stately home owned by Donald Blake, where a priceless piece of porcelain disappears. The next day CBS is providing security at the annual Wrydale Country Show.

At the show Harry breaks up a quarrel between an angry stallholder and a middle-aged Irish woman, Mary O'Haren. She tells him she admires detective films, and Harry, who is taken with her, boasts that he is a private investigator. The word gets round. Blake has his estate manager, Stephen Alwyn, played by Stephen Tompkinson, hire Harry to look into the theft.

Ken doubts that Harry can do the job, but agrees to swap places so that he can keep an eye on the security. The house is also a health farm, and Harry goes in undercover as a patient. He soon finds himself in danger, and Ken, whom no one suspects of being involved, offers to help. Harry meets a resident, Buster, played by Brian Murphy, who turns out to be a former cat burglar and agrees to infiltrate the building's security system. Buster reports that whoever took the porcelain must have had a key.

Ken concludes that the theft is an inside job. He overhears Blake's estranged wife, Rebecca, telling an unseen person in the stables that she plans to arrange a meeting for that evening. At a fireworks display that night, a scream is heard from the stables. Harry, Mary and Rocky rush over to find Rebecca crouched over Ken, who has been shot.

At the hospital Harry confesses to Mary that he is not a private investigator. She encourages him to set a trap to catch the person behind the robbery and the shooting.

Tony Jordan wrote the episode and A. J. Quinn directs. Michael Kitchen, who has a page on this site, plays Blake; Eve Matheson plays Rebecca, and Britta Smith plays Mary. The fan site adds that this episode develops two long-running threads, the growing romance between Ken and Alex and the presumed engagement of Harry and Mary.

The idea is a satisfying reversal for the last episode. For seven series Harry has been the businessman who needs Ken's help, and here his boast makes him the detective, with Ken as the colleague who must step in. The title's pun is exact: Ken is shot in the dark, and Harry, who has been shooting in the dark himself with his pretence, has to find the way forward.

IMDb users give it 8.5, among the highest scores of the run. TheTVDB's one-line description, that Harry falls hopelessly in love with a woman he meets at a fair and that his boasting lands him in hot water, captures the tone. The recorded plot ends with Harry preparing to trap the thief.