Air Date: Feb. 26, 1969. Written by: James Mitchell. Directed by: Jim Goddard. Produced by: Reginald Collin.
This review is based on the revised script published in Callan Uncovered, Volume 2.
THE PLOT:
"Sir Gerald Naylor is a Communist traitor. His sexual activities are disgusting."
This typed, anonymous letter leads Callan to investigate Gerald Naylor (Nicholas Selby). A scientist-turned-administrator, Naylor has it all: money, influence, and a beautiful young trophy wife (Karin MacCarthy). He also responds to the investigation exactly correctly, with a mix of indignation and bewilderment. To all appearances, he is an honest man with no enemies and nothing to hide.
But, as Callan observes, "nobody's that clean." And when he discovers a photograph of Naylor and two other boys from his time at Cambridge, the pieces begin falling into place...
CHARACTERS:
Callan: Carries out his duties with typical ruthless efficiency. Even so, he admits to Hunter that he likes Naylor, and he is clearly more sympathetic toward Naylor than toward those trying to bring him down. He eventually finds out who wrote the letter (of course), and agrees that the man is "rather malicious." When Naylor's wife seems primed to blame her husband for the investigation, Callan displays open disdain for her lack of support for him.
Hunter: Throughout this installment, we see him collaborating with Callan in a free and even friendly manner. This is a marked contrast to his predecessors. Where the first Hunter relied on threats, leverage, and a "balance of terror" and the second tended toward psychological manipulation, this Hunter is more inclined to just work with his agent to get the best result.
Lonely: Pops up in a "B" plot that sees him menaced by a local thug after pulling a heist on the wrong person. There is an attempt to tie it thematically to the main plot, as the thug is blackmailing Lonely into giving him a very large sum of money. Overall, however, these scenes are not well-integrated. Given that the entire subplot probably ate up only a little more than 5 minutes of screen time, it feels mainly as if it was included to make sure that Russell Hunter didn't end up missing three episodes in a row.
THOUGHTS:
Blackmailers Should Be Discouraged is... fine. It's well-paced, and except for the awkwardly-inserted Lonely subplot, each event flows naturally into the next. One advantage of having access to the missing episode scripts is that they really help in showing the working relationship between Callan and the third Hunter - which is barely glimpsed in the existing episodes, as so few of Derek Bond's episodes remain intact.
The most notable thing about the script is how frankly it deals with homosexuality. The boy in the photograph with Naylor is described as being "pretty" by multiple people. When his name is brought up, Naylor admits that he loved him, stating that he was the only person he ever loved before he met his young wife. This openness is unusual for television of the time - as is Naylor continuing to be treated as a sympathetic character after the revelation.
These would be the aspects most interesting to see if the episode was recovered: the working relationship with Hunter and the startlingly mature handling of the topic of homosexuality. Outside of that, the story itself is largely unremarkable - a thinly-veiled take on the "Cambridge Five," which had been brought back to public consciousness in 1963 when Kim Philby fled to the Soviet Union. At the time, its parallels to (moderately) current events may have given it an extra charge; read today, however, it's competently-done but decidedly unexciting.
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