Thursday, June 1, 2017

'Edge of Darkness' 1985 BBC TV Mini-Series 'Compassionate Leave'

Everyone knows I love a good murder mystery. I stumbled onto this BBC TV mini-series from the 1980's. This was later remade into a movie starring Mel Gibson.

EDGE OF DARKNESS for BBC Television (1985). The first episode is called, “Compassionate Leave.” 

Ronald Craven is a police officer. He picks up his daughter Emma at the local university. She is an environmental activist. They return home at night and it’s raining heavily. A male holds a shotgun in front of them. Emma jumps in front of Ronald and is shot dead. The police believe that the killer’s target was Ronald. 

The male is unidentifiable and Ronald doesn’t know why he was the target. He is put on leave by his boss, but he can investigate on his own unofficially. He found a gun inside Emma’s bedroom and didn’t realize how much danger she was in. It looks like she was working underground without her him knowing it. Ronald discovers that her personal items and the gun are radioactive.

A mysterious man tells Ronald that his car is bugged with a listening device. He also says that Emma was a terrorist...,

This is 1985 and there is no "internet" and "computers" were in its’ infancy. There was also no cell phones, but only car phones. Everyone used rotary and/or pay phones on the street. The police investigated on instinct and a lot of in-depth questioning of eye witnesses. 

Click poster for EDGE OF DARKNESS on DVD.
(BBC photo)

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