Hearts and Minds

A burglar is found dead at the home of Professor Frederick Busby, and nothing appears to have been stolen. That's the puzzle Hearts and Minds opens with, and the answer is stranger than the crime. Government official Justin Bellcourt tells Regan and Carter that Busby has been developing pills to relieve heart disease, that the break-in was probably masterminded by a man called Danilov, and that the intended patient is a foreign head of state, friendly to Britain, whose own heart could do with the help.

Busby, understandably unnerved by dead men on his premises, goes on the run. Before he goes he entrusts his entire supply of experimental medicine to his girlfriend Wendy. This is where the episode tips over into something The Sweeney had never quite attempted before: Wendy works with Morecambe and Wise, playing themselves, and the pills end up in their hands. So the chase that follows has villains after a comedy duo, the Flying Squad after the same duo, and everyone converging on what the production notes call a very fishy climax.

Donald Churchill, Ted Childs and Ian Kennedy Martin wrote it, Mike Vardy directed, and the supporting cast does its best to keep a straight face. Garfield Morgan as Haskins, Edward Hardwicke as Bellcourt, George Mikell as Danilov, Caroline Blakiston as Hildegarde, Jenny Quayle as Wendy and Edward de Souza as the professor.

It's the oddest episode of the final series by some distance. Whether Morecambe and Wise belong in a Sweeney story is the sort of question you can argue about for years; my own view is that the collision is half the fun, even if the seams show. Regan chasing heart pills through a sketch-show universe shouldn't work, yet there's real charm in watching 1978's biggest television stars share a frame with John Thaw.