Highland Fling (1)

Some old sketches put Lovejoy and Jane on a trail that takes them up to Scotland. Jane's friend needs help raising money to maintain an expensive estate, and the trip uncovers a plot by another antiques dealer to con her. Scotland, it turns out, has the same trade practices as East Anglia, just with better scenery. The friend turns out to be Katriona Brooksby, and her ancestral home is the real reason the sketches matter.

Back home, Eric is involved with a young woman whose relations sound decidedly unsavoury, though she does have an antique mirror to sell. And Lovejoy and Jane are moving closer to romance, which everyone except the two of them can see. Then there is the girl Lovejoy keeps seeing in the woods, whose identity and connection to the plot remain the episode's quiet question mark. The first half went out on 29 March 1992, with the second following a week later, and the girl in the woods is the best hook either part has.

Ian La Frenais, Jonathan Gash and Andrew Payne wrote it, Francis Megahy directed. Ian McShane is Lovejoy, Phyllis Logan is Lady Jane Felsham, Dudley Sutton is Tinker Dill, and Chris Jury is Eric Catchpole. Simon Ward plays Edward Brooksby, Eleanor David is Katriona Brooksby, Adrienne Corri is Lady Rebecca, Bill Travers is Duncan, Larry Lamb is Gerald Somers, and Tom Cotcher is Robert Fraser. Simon Ward, who played the young Winston Churchill in Young Winston, is among the guest names.

The episode moves between a grand estate in the Highlands and Eric's troubles at home, and the balance keeps it from feeling like a holiday special. The sketches, the mirror, the girl in the woods: everything is a thread waiting to be pulled, and the second half promises to pull them all. Two-parters were rare in this show, so the story gets more room to breathe than usual.