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Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased): Difference between revisions
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{{quote|''Why can't you stay dead like anyone else?''|Jeff Randall to Marty Hopkirk}}
''Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)'' is a [[Buddy Cop Show]] (well, Buddy ''[[Detective Drama]]'') from the 1960s with a difference. When Marty Hopkirk, of the Randall and Hopkirk private detective agency, dies in a hit-and-run, everyone including his partner, Jeff Randall, assumes it was a tragic accident. That is, until someone insists that it wasn't, it was murder, and Jeff must investigate.
Why does Jeff believe them? Well... because the person who insists ''is'' Marty, in ghostly form (denoted by his white suit), has every reason to believe he was murdered and you can't get a better witness than that! Actually, you can, because [[Spirit Advisor|only Jeff (and the odd psychic) can see and hear Marty]] so he can't exactly give a testimony. So together Jeff and Marty try to solve the murder and Marty can rest in peace... or he could, if he hadn't stayed out of his grave too long, so now he's stuck on Earth. It's not too bad, though, as having a ghost for a partner who has a few useful powers--walking through walls, teleportation, the ability to shatter glass and call up gusts of wind, telekinesis (though this is just to make up for Marty's intangibility, anyway)--is quite handy on cases.
On the other hand, it is very trying to be in a [[Love Triangle]] where the girl you like can't even see your rival and he gets stroppy with you for pursuing her anyway... to be fair, though, she is his widow. That and people think you're crazy because of all the (real) [[Dead Person Conversation|Dead Person Conversations]] you keep having.
It ran 26 episodes from 1969 to 1970 on [[ITV]], starring Mike Pratt and Kenneth Cope. It had a [[
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{{tropelist}}
=== The original series provides examples of: ===
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* [[Instrumental Theme Tune]]: All harpsichord-y and eerie, evoking both cop shows and genre shows of the era.
* [[Love Triangle]]: (a [[Triang Relations|No. 7]] but with b. being dead) Jeff and Marty over Marty's now widow, Jeannie Hopkirk.
* [[Market-Based Title]]: The original series aired in America as ''My Partner, the Ghost'' because [[Executive Meddling|network execs]] once again assumed that [[Viewers are Morons]] and that Americans wouldn't know what ''deceased'' means, or were unaware that it isn't (or wasn't at the time) rare to put (Deceased) after a dead partner's name in many sorts of companies.
* [[Multitasked Conversation]]: Jeff and Marty have a lot of these.
* [[Name and Name]]
* [[Our Ghosts Are Different]]
* [[Spirit Advisor]]: Only Jeff (and the rare one-off character) can see and hear Marty.
* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: Jeannie, almost constantly.
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* [[The Not-Secret]]: One episode sees Jeff hired to protect a former civil servant who is in danger from various political groups [[My Friends and Zoidberg|(and a jilted former lover)]] due to a speech he's about to give which will potentially blow the lid on a number of political scandals. When he actually gives the speech, it turns out that the "scandals" are such common knowledge -- like the existence of the Mafia, and the fact that a few government ministers are homosexual -- that everyone involved is left feeling like an idiot for ever being worried.
* [[The Other Darrin]]: Felia was played by Jessica Hynes in the first season, and replaced by Pauline Quirke for her sole appearance in the second season. Considering that her characterisation seemed to totally change between the two seasons (Hynes's version was confident and self-assertive, but Quirke's version was a neurotic crybaby with OCD), it seems kind of strange that they bothered to keep her as the same character.
* [[
* [[Shout-Out]]: The finale episode has what at first glance appears to be a reference to ''[[Psycho]]'', with a mysterious figure in a chair watching Jeff and Jeannie's progress through the store, only for it to turn out that {{spoiler|the figure is actually a mostly-decomposed skeleton}}. In actual fact it's a reference to the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' story "Death to the Daleks", which has a near-identical scene (the finale episode was co-written by [[Mark Gatiss]], a famous ''Doctor Who'' fan who would subsequently become a writer on that show's revival in 2005).
* [[Spiritual Successor|Spiritual Predecessor]]: Many consider the 2000-01 series to be a prototype of sorts for the 2005 ''[[Doctor Who]]'' relaunch. In addition to the obvious link of having [[Tom Baker]] as Wyvern, as well as [[David Tennant]] as the man who {{spoiler|kills Hopkirk}} in the first episode, many of the production team on the ''Randall & Hopkirk'' remake would later pop up on ''Doctor Who'', including writers [[Mark Gatiss]] and Gareth Roberts, as well as composer Murray Gold.
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[[Category:Speculative Fiction Series]]
[[Category:Buddy Cop Show]]
[[Category:Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)]]
[[Category:TV Series]]
[[Category:Multiple Works Need Separate Pages]]
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