The end of Delia Smith’s Summer Collection opens this tape. There’s a trailer for Test Cricket, and one for Gunsmoke.
Then, Quantum Leap and an episode called Unchained.
Sam is a fugitive from a chain gang, chained to another prisoner with chronic claustrophobia.
The other prisoner is innocent – another man, a white guy, has been robbing stores with blackface on, and we learn he’s working for the warden of the chain gang.
After various travails, Sam and Boone finally face off against the evil warden, and Al frightens his dogs so that he falls off a bridge, so Sam and Boone are able to escape across the state line.
BBC Genome: BBC Two – 1st June 1993 – 21:00
Next used to be a recording of the film 2010, which I know because that’s what my database said.
Instead, after a trail for Holding On there’s an episode of Room 101, the Nick Hancock years, featuring Ulrika Jonsson. One of her choices is Ferrero Rocher.
She also doesn’t like Yorkshire Terriers.
BBC Genome: BBC Two – 19th September 1997 – 22:00
Notice that this is much, much later than the first recording – I was obviously casting around for a tape to use, and had probably got 2010 on another tape.
After this, recording continues with a trailer for Radio 1 Night – Roni Size and Reprazent.
There’s also a trail for Correspondent.
Then, an episode of Newsnight, leading with the news of a serious train crash in Southall.
There’s also a report on the recent vote to establish a Welsh Assembly. It’s really odd, watching this, that all of a sudden Labour are in goverment. We’ve been deep in the early nineties for so long on this blog that this timeshift is quite strange.
BBC Genome: BBC Two – 19th September 1997 – 22:30
After this, a trail for Correspondent.
Then, a trail for Radio 1 Night.
There’s a snatch in that trailer of Brian and Michael’s classic “Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs”. Which slightly freaked me out because my wife is currently in hospital, and when visiting yesterday, she had the Hospital Radio on, and listened to it for a few seconds to see what was playing. She didn’t recognise it, so I listened, and it was Brian and Michael. A very familiar song to me, but she grew up in various foreign countries and missed out almost entirely on pop music. And then it randomly pops up on the next tape I’m looking at. I wish I knew what it meant.
Following this, there’s the start of an episode of VR.5. And here’s another strange coincidence. One of the first actors we see is Elya Baskin, who always seems to be a go-to actor for Russian characters.
It’s strange because he also appears in 2010, the film that was previously on this tape.
Talking of 2010, the recording of VR.5 stops partway through, and that recording is still underneath, so we’re hurled back in time to 1993. It’s the end of the film, by which time Elya Baskin’s character has died, if I’m remembering correctly.
After this, recording switches to BBC2 and a trailer for the series version of Parenthood. There’s also a trail for the Comic Strip film GLC.
Then, another Quantum Leap. Sam leaps into a young man having an affair with an older woman.
The woman’s daughter-in-law is played by Anna Gunn, off of Breaking Bad.
Sam is a young actor, playing Hamlet on Broadway. But the only way to solve the problems he’s there to solve is to play Hamlet naked. It’s the 60s, isn’t it?
BBC Genome: BBC Two – 8th June 1993 – 21:00
After this, recording continues for a time. There’s a trail for a series about Adultery.
Then, the start of The Great Picture Trail in which various random people give their impressions of great pictures in various British galleries and museums. The tape ends during this programme.